In defense of the Big Mac

Ya’ll, I eat as healthy as the next person. I really do. Today, I’ve had a bagel with cream cheese, a Greek chicken sandwich and a few bites of pork tenderloin. However, I also understand that once in awhile…just once in awhile… the craving for fast food must be obeyed. And my favorite thing ever in the world is a Big Mac. I know the “special sauce” is just mayonnaise, ketchup and pickle relish. Any fool knows that. But I find the cheesy, beefy, saucy combination irresistible.

So that is why I laughed when I opened up the latest issue of Food Network Magazine and found this ridiculous article by Ellie Krieger, who has a healthy cooking show on the channel, about taking a Big Mac and dismembering it to make healthy Sloppy Joes. It is just so wrong on every level. She advises us to chop the filling of the Big Mac, including all the toppings. She advises us to save the top and bottom bun and throw out the crucial middle bun. Then she adds in a bunch of vegetables, no-salt tomato sauce, red beans and a few other things and cooks them to make Sloppy Joes. And she claims this is now healthy. Now granted, the Big Mac that would serve one (me!) now serves four. But here’s an idea. Why not eat the original and flawless Big Mac and then be good the rest of the week rather than contorting perfection into something mortifying? By the way, if you want to do this, here’s the recipe. I would not suggest  it.

So here’s the next thing that just made me hoot. She wants us to take a two-piece Kentucky Fried Chicken meal and make Asian Chicken Salad out of it! The Food Network had enough good sense not to put the recipe on the website so you’ll just have to buy the magazine to get it. Here’s the thing that just stopped me in my tracks. The recipe advises you to discard the chicken skin and then shred the meat. Then it tells us that this makeover cuts out 80 percent of the fat while keeping the Colonel’s secret herbs and spices. No, it does not! Where are all those secret herbs and spices? In the skin, of course. Which you have just “discarded.”

I won’t even go into the recipe that takes a Taco Bell 1/2 pound burrito and turns it into tortilla soup. Just eat the burrito and go to the gym. Enough already.