Weight for Success

I wish I could take credit for this recipe, but I cannot.  I found this on Current Mom and I want to give her credit.  In general I have always hated — no, make that HATED — vegetarian burgers bought at the supermarket. To begin with they always look like they were stamped out of wood.  Once cooked, my opinion never improved.  My friends raved about Boca burgers and I literally could not eat them. 

Yesterday I tripped on this recipe for Veggie Burgers and, while I was skeptical, I raced home to mix them up with hopes that I would find a big winner.  Truthfully, I’m not sure and I will only give them a B minus grade, BUT I have hope that in a second batch with a lot more seasoning I might actually come to crave these healthy substitutions.

Summary: Better than Average Vegetable Burger

Ingredients

• 1 small onion (about a 1/4 cup), minced
• 1-3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 cup finely chopped greens
• 2 tbsp olive or vegetable oil
• 2 cups cooked lentils, drained thoroughly and mashed
• 1 carrot, grated and squeezed
• 2 tbsp nuts or seeds, toasted
• 2 eggs
• 1-2 tbsp soy sauce
• 2-3 tbsp fresh herbs, chopped
• 1½ to 2 cups cracker or bread crumbs

Instructions

What to do:

1. Note: If you are cooking your own lentils, do that first.

Greens, garlic and onions

2. Heat 1 tbsp of the oil over medium heat in a medium skillet. Add the onion and sauté until translucent. Add the garlic and greens and cook until the greens are softened.

3. While the veggies are cooking combine the mashed lentils, carrot, nuts or seeds, eggs, soy sauce, and herbs in a large bowl.

4. Add the cooked veggies and combine thoroughly. Add cracker or bread crumbs until the mixture is no longer wet. It should be as dry as you can get it while still able to hold together easily.

5. Wipe out the skillet you used to cook the veggies. Form mixture into patties of desired size.

6. Heat the other tbsp of oil on medium heat. Add as many patties as will fit and sauté for a few minutes on each side. You want the egg to cook and the patties to heat through. Add a bit more oil if you have to cook multiple batches. The patties should be nicely browned on both sides.

7. Serve immediately with desired condiments and toppings. I used a dipping sauce (honey mustard) and relish.

A few notes on the ingredients:

First of all, everything except the lentils and the crumbs in this recipe is optional (Go wild!).

Obviously, a veggie burger made with just lentils and crumbs might taste a bit lacking, but you can leave out some of the other ingredients if you don’t like or don’t have them, and it’s no big deal. You can add herbs, veggies and seasonings you prefer, just amend the final cracker/bread crumb ratio so the final mixture is dry. Even the eggs (I used only egg whites); the burgers will hold together just fine without them.

Lentils cook very quickly (30 minutes or so — faster if you soak them for a couple hours first), so there’s no need to buy canned lentils, but you can if you want. You can mash with a potato masher or put them in the food processor. 

I used plain, out-of-the-box seasoned bread crumbs and I still thought the final taste needed more seasoning. Don’t be afraid to add more. If you want to make your own bread crumbs, just toss your choice of bread or crackers (or a mixture) in the food processor.

The greens can be any edible green leafy thing (although I wouldn’t recommend lettuce). I started out planning to use a chard, but ended up using spinach for my first venture.

I used soy nuts, but any seed or nut would work. I chopped mine up in the food processor before I added the lentils. Toasting the nuts adds more flavor.

I used 2 tablespoons of fresh parsley and 1 tablespoon of fresh basil because that’s what I had on hand. In retrospect I might have added more basil or even thyme. Again, these can take a lot of seasoning so be liberal.

Cooking time (minutes): 60

Diet type: Vegetarian

Diet (other): Low calorie, Reduced fat, High protein

Meal type: dinner

CulinaryTradition: USA (General)

My rating:3.0 stars

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In June I wrote a post that our representatives in the House and Senate were not going in the right direction with Health Care because they weren’t dealing with the biggest issue — as a nation we are unhealthy and too fat for universal healthcare.   It was, and remains, my contention that until we attack the issue of obesity as a nation we cannot afford to insure every person for every problem.

Now RTI International, an independent non-profit scientific research institute, released a study recently pointing to higher medical costs for the obese population. That study was picked up by the Associated Press and others yesterday.

RTI found that on average medical costs for obese patients were $1,400 more annually due to weight related issues like diabetes and heart disease. 

What’s interesting about this is that something I said weeks ago was finally echoed by an expert.

“RTI health economist Eric Finkelstein offers a blunt message for lawmakers trying to revamp the health care system: ‘Unless you address obesity, you’re never going to address rising health care costs.’”

Unfortunately we are too politically correct here in the USA and no one wants to tell Americans that it is financially impossible to provide all this healthcare to an unhealthy nation. There has to be some personal accountability and responsibility. We need a national effort to lose weight.  We need a national strategy to HELP overweight individuals take responsibility for their eating habits.

There are a lot of people promoting taxes and penalties for the heavy-set Americans.  But taxing that population means taxing two-thirds of the population, and there are no indications that taxes and penalties would change anything.  More likely that 60% of Americans would get mad enough to vote out the administration in charge and reverse any legal penalties.

I would advocate that the issue is education. For more of the 20th century the government utilized a food pyramid to promote a high carbohydrate, low fat diet.  It then turned out that low fat, high sugar diets were partially to blame for an overweight public.  Combine that bad advice with an aging, inactive society enjoying enormous super-size portions and you get a recipe for exactly what we got — a super sized public.

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