Recently, I John Allen Mollenhauer, founder of NutrientRich.com, went to one of the fastest growing hamburger franchises in the country, called Smashburger.
Now, with all the talk you may hear about within the plant based, nutrient rich world, perhaps vegan or vegetarian, about the downsides of nutrient poor animal products; why would the founder of NutrientRich.com be walking into a burger joint?
First, we nutrient rich eaters savor the mentality that we can eat whatever we want, but that we just can’t eat whatever and get the results we want. So years ago, I saw the advent of the better burger, when I first penned a document called the Nutrient Rich revolution. It was 2005 and I saw a restaurant called Better Burger NYC. It was a much healthier “grass fed” burger joint that also had smoothies, really healthy salads etc.
Now, for those of you who know my shtick on “grass fed”, that was not what impressed me. Grass fed is one of the most ridiculous rationalizations ever, since most people eat meat for protein, and all the protein comes from grass. Greens. Don’t get me started.
I do happen to like meat, despite my philosophies around it’s consumption. I just never eat more than 10% of my diet from it, and most cases never more than a few oz’s a week up to 12 oz at most and its rare that even happens, because it’s nutrient poor and my body doesn’t tolerate much of it anyway. Even a healthier grass fed hamburger will be full of saturated fat,cholesterol and of course animal protein itself, and unhealthy fats leave quite a flemmy aftermath in a clean nutrient-rich body.
But picking on burgers for good reasons, is not the point of this post; pointing out that going to some burger joints today get’s you more than just burgers is. It get’s you salads, portabello (PB) mushroom burgers, yam fries, salads and more. That’s what I had this past week when I took a trip to Smash Burger. And all of that IS nutrient rich!
Matter of fact, we asked the store manager not to put oil and salt on our yam fries and string beans (one of the mixes they have) and it came back nicely flavored with our PB burger and it was an awesome meal.
So, hats off to the new burger joint of today. They have made it possible for people who are transitioning to a more plant based nutrient way of eating, to habit their establishments. And one of the nice things to do in our culture is to be able to stop in and dine at various establishments, even a burger joint. No one wants to feel like they can’t go places because of how they eat.
So in summary:
- Don’t write off a burger joint even if you are vegetarian or vegan, they are selling what people want. That doesn’t make anyone bad and they will sell you what you want to.
The Nutrient Rich revolution was always going to be a consumer revolution demanding better quality foods and it has worked. - Know that you can eat virtually anywhere today.
- Enjoy it the exploration!