The news is all abuzz lately about First Lady Michelle Obama’s visit to the fast food joint Shake Shack on Monday, and the 1700 calorie, high fat and cholesterol, lunch she had there. Over the past couple of years we’ve admired the attention the First Lady has paid to nutritional issues, and have also listened as she has recounted her own struggles to eat more healthfully. We want to help!  America’s First Lady deserves only best. So we have redesigned her lunch to include the same menu selections, made with plant-based products instead, and to make it fun we’ve used only products featured at Vegfest.

The Shake Shack lunch consisted of a double cheeseburger, fries, a chocolate shake and a Diet Coke. The nutritional breakdown is so scary we’re amazed the Secret Service let her take the risk! At 1720 calories, 91g fat (48g saturated), 430mg cholesterol, 12g fiber, 71g sugar, 2,410mg sodium, plus added artificial chemicals, the Shake Shack lunch sure is hard on both Michelle Obama’s health and her figure.

Now here’s a great tasting plant-based lunch she could have instead especially if she were at Vegfest. A double Boca Vegan Burger, with two slices of Galaxy dairy-free American “Cheese” on a Dave’s Killer Bread Bun, with a side order of Alexia Classic Oven Fries, an Odwalla Super Protein Chocolate drink, and a Zevia calorie free Cola (sweetened with natural herb stevia). A great lunch! Here’s the nutritional breakdown.  890 calories, 21g fat (1g saturated), 0mg cholesterol, 17g fiber, 25g  sugar, 1,820mg sodium, and no artificial chemicals. Compare this meal to the one the first Lady had. What difference!

Now many people falsely assume they have to run to a fast food place such as McDonalds for a quick fix of American-style fast food, and that poor nutrition and a detriment to their health is the inevitable price they’ll pay.  While we might not recommend this plant-based fast food meal for lunch every day, we think it has a powerful health advantage over the Shake Shack lunch and other fast food lunches like it, by offering great taste and much better nutrition. Think of it as the vegetarian advantage for health.

There are other vegetarian advantages to be had as well. It turns out that raising meat is one of the biggest causes of global warming. It’s also a major cause of water pollution, the leading cause of soil erosion and the number one cause of ecological destruction on both land and sea. Raising meat is also a major driver of global hunger since a dozen people could be fed a vegetarian meal for every person eating a meat-based one. And last, but not least given harsh conditions prevailing on today’s factory farms, a vegetarian diet is a more humane diet, lifting our humanity as we show compassion to innocent farm animals. Given all these advantages we hope you and the first lady will see that a vegetarian lunch deserves unanimous bipartisan support.