Remember the old song from the 70s, Teach Your Children Well, by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young? The second stanza initially caught everyone off guard when they enlightened us that children can teach their parents as well as, and sometimes even better than parents teach kids, and herein lies the beginning of this story. Now every family has one of those stories about a hapless family member that gets retold over 100 times but never seems to get old. We've got a few of those ourselves but the one that comes to mind today is the story my daughter never gets tired of telling about her 8 years younger brother whom she always cared for and catered to while they were growing up. She often prepared meals and more for him as did everyone so even at 13 he claimed to be helpless in the kitchen. This was proven one day when she returned home from college and he implored his older sister to make him a bowl of cereal! If you have a child like this don't give up hope because there is always a chance things could change, and 10 years later after he moved out, he proved that by learning how to cook for himself, and finding out much to his surprise that he is really good at it. Now we often get into discussions about new recipes and who's the better chef, which of course I am, we both claim.
Not only that, I am a huge foodie so from practically the day my kids were born we frequented restaurants, diners and dives anywhere and everywhere on a weekly basis giving our kids access to a vast array of divergent foods outside the confines of my recipe boxes, so it's not surprising that he now heads up the Dining and Entertainment section as a reporter for the Lebanon Daily News, where each week he goes in search of new foods, drinks and experiences. On this day however I brought up the new Impossible Burger from Burger King which is made with a vegetarian burger that allegedly tastes like beef, but as it turns out it's no surprise that it doesn't. Not only that, it's got nothing else to brag about; it's nutritionally a wash--not any less in calories, fat or carbs than regular meat. In fact, I complained, it doesn't really taste like anything which is I guess, better than tasting like the early vegetarian burgers when they first hit the scene many moons ago. But why would I want to eat this sandwich that has no benefits and tastes like a giant tomato? Yet always the antagonist, Andrew claimed that the purpose was not for the IB to taste like a burger or to have less calories, but more to introduce meatless foods to Americans. So who's going to eat it if it doesn't taste like a burger, which they claim it does? Response: those against global warming. Yeah right. That's still the same 5% we had before the Impossible Burger, but I was warming to the idea (see what I did there), so asked him to go on. He explained that he and his wife are conscious of the amount of damage meat farming does to the climate so they make efforts to reduce their intake. In fact, he pointed out, he now makes Turkey Meat Tacos instead of Beef Tacos and they are great. Further, he argued, you can't tell the difference between the meats when prepared in this manner. Since he's become an accomplished cook in a relatively short time I conceded. He makes a fair point and I'm willing to try it. So I put Ground Turkey on the Honeydew list and waited. Imagine my shock when I grabbed the Turkey Burger package to open it and saw the plastic wrapped in plastic container surrounded by a heavy cardboard sleeve advertising the product! As an avid recycler the first thing I thought of is what an obnoxious waste of resources the sleeve is. Had they just used a large sticker, not only would it have saved such senseless waste it would have thoroughly sealed the package so that nobody along the path to or at the final destination could open the product without detection. So if we are using less meat but creating more pollution by using worthless adornments on the products, are we really diminishing or
contributing to global waste, and hence global pollution? To me, it's a wash, but in all fairness my son is right. You can't really taste the difference between turkey and beef in the tacos anymore than you can detect it in Shepherd's Pie, so when I find a company that produces Turkey Burger without the counterproductive sleeve, this will become a regular way I can contribute to my part in the lessening of meat farming. No matter the age, you can always learn something from your kids if you listen to them. #jennyo #impossibleburger #turkeyburger #turkeytaco #kidsteachingparents #turkeymeat #turkey #bk #burgerking
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