Relaxed Parents

Well, not that good, surely – chips, two big slabs of sugar and carbs masquerading as sour dough and the cheaper cuts of unknown bovines put through a mincer and grilled on the same location as the previous two or three thousand. Then there’s whatever they put in the ketchup, the sodium levels on the chips…

Oh the guilt. Dudelet, supermum and I are addicted to posh burgers (well, on maybe a bi-weekly basis).

What is a posh burger? Within a few miles of us, there are several variants – the Fine Burger Company, Gourmet Burger Company and Hamburger Union to name but three. Google ‘posh burgers’ and you get a Guardian article, a BBC news item from Nov 30 and the inevitable demonstration that when it comes to burgers the rest of the planet are always going to be rank amateurs compared to the Americans. Fine Burger Company probably take more of our money than any of the others, being a) local and b) trained to Wagamama and Pizza Express levels of family friendly service (we’ve caught glimpses of lists of procedures about looking the child in the eye, asking them what they want, not the parent, getting crayons and colouring paper straight to the table along with the menus – all very true. There’s nothing worse than watching a waiter ask a parent what their child wants whilst the toddler concerned more and more frantically gestures, tugs and sleeves and painstakingly ennunciates the very same. Usually chips, but that’s freedom of choice for you).

But is it really qualitatively different from a Big Mac or a greaseburger from Wendy’s? Or is it the smoke and mirrors of nicely varnished beech furniture, hardwood floors and a complete abscence of Disney tie-ins and plastic toys? The BBC article cited above quotes stats showing double the fat in an Ed’s Diner burger (posh) compared a MacDonalds. The same is probably true of our friendly, local FBC. So why does a big Mac taste disgusting and an FBC taste like something someone actually cooked?

Maybe it comes down to ingredients. A hand cut chip is still recognisably a potato and the only thing unhealthy about a lightly fried potato (i.e. not sodden with fat or entirely consisting of it bar a narrow vein of something white down the middle) is eating too many of them. The kids’ meals at a lot of ‘posh’ joints come with salad (though not Gourmet and Hamburger Union don’t do a children’s menu at all – big points deducted there) and places that use the more expensive grass-fed beef (e.g. Hamburger Union – points back on) as opposed to corn fed are delivering a healthier type of fat. Apparently it comes down to the ratio of omega-3 (good) vs omega-6 (bad) fats (buried in an article at Purdue University somewhere here).

Who am I kidding? Dudelet’s nearly three. He likes chips. Occasionally, we like to watch him enjoying them – we’re prone to the odd chip ourselves. Once or twice or month can’t hurt. And all that polished beechwood must count for something. Right?