Guys, what is with all of the food trends being either zero-calorie, nutrient-dense greens or froofy, sugary, carby grain-based things? I mean — cupcakes, donuts, cronuts, toast? Kale, collards, chard? We’re in denial, here. It’s like if we eat enough kale we might be able to “get away with” (eye roll) eating fried dough.
There’s no love for protein, man. I mean, yeah, bacon, but we’ve baconed so much that we’re about to have a bacon shortage. We need to replace the obsession. Here are my ideas:
- A steak sandwich with steak for bread. You think it’s just a stack of three pieces of steak, but you’re wrong, as long as there’s condiments.
- Jibaritos. Speaking of sandwiches, YOU GUYS DON’T EVEN KNOW about jibaritos. It’s a meat sandwich with fried plantains for bread and it was invented in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood. Best-kept sandwich secret in the country.
- Taquitos. They’re tacos for the clumsy. Come on, this is a no-brainer.
- Fried cheese. We can get fancy with the cheese-seasoning-oil combinations! We can make up a French name for it so that it sounds more legit! We can start with Halloumi and go from there! The sky’s the limit! More exclamation points!
Source: Great Food
- Cocktails made with protein shakes. Protein shakes are like 15 percent of my diet, so let’s make this happen.
- Variations on Braciole. Meat stuffed with cheese and roasted? Jesus, guys, if we can make toast interesting, we can make this idea magical.
- Fried chicken, no waffles. Fried chicken is a lost art. Our grandparents knew how to do it, but we don’t. It’s possible to make this fancy, too! Imagine the marinades you could use for the chicken and the spices you could throw into the batter. Guise, sour cream and chive fried chicken. Pineapple chicken in coconut crust. Srsly guise.
Source: Eat By Date - Quiche. It’s about as calorically dense as a donut but more nutritious. If you can justify cake, you can justify quiche.
- Meat baskets stuffed with egg and cheese. I’m convinced that bacon is not the only meat product out of which you could make a basket. You could totally pound chicken down thin and cook it into a basket shape. You could totally carve ham into a bowl. It’s hand food, you could sell it from food trucks!
Skipping the “eek sugar makes you fat!” rhetoric, because there are more important reasons than patriarchal beauty standards to make the switch from a sweet tooth to a meat tooth (and “fit and fat” is definitely a thing that exists): Sugar can damage your heart, affects your liver, and zaps your brain’s cognitive health. Keep the collards, but ditch sugar for that sweet, sweet protein buzz! How much more can we really do with pastries, anyway?
[NY Post]
[Huffington Post]
Original by Rebecca Vipond Brink
