Wow, it's Tubular, man...

Just read a blog post about a vegan "Ham Tube", providing such insightful and useful product review information as "people on Twitter said it's the best thing since sliced bread" and "...it has a slightly sweet flavor with a wonderful texture that is extremely versatile."  Curious as to what's in this faux-meat cylinder (May Wah) with such twit endorsement, I found the following:

"Ingredients: textured soybean protein, canola oil, vegetarian spice, salt, soy sauce, edible coloring red #40(a vegan coloring)

Serving Size: 1/10 piece (100g)
Calories: 231
Total Fat: 10.9g
Cholesterol: 0
Sodium: 980mg
Total Carb: 14.3g
Fiber: 3g
Protein: 18.8g
Sugars: 1g"

Yummy! Instead of dead pig, oil, salt, flavorings, and food coloring, we get textured soybean protein, oil, salt, flavorings and "edible" food coloring.  Exchanging one addiction for essentially the same (oh, but then it's vegan... it MUST be good, and no animals were harmed).  Also, check out those numbers.  That one slice (serving) contains about half what Drs. Ornish and Esselstyn would recommend per day of total fat, 1/6th the Feds.  Furthermore;  an equal amount of extra lean ham is 107 calories and 3 grams of fat.  May Wah (aka, "tubular fat") has near 2.5 times the calories and over THREE TIMES THE FAT of extra lean ham.  "Tubby or not tubby?" that is the question....

And while we assault our cardiovascular system, let's make it a one-two punch:  the amount of salt/sodium in that ONE serving (might fit on a large cracker and wouldn't even make a full sandwich) is about half of the total daily salt recommended by the American Heart Association (and about the same as in said extra lean ham).

Reality check: at a cost $9.25 (not counting shipping) for 2 lbs. of the "tube o' fat," you could, instead, purchase 9 pounds of lentils and most other legumes, 6 lbs. of tofu, 5 lbs. or so of tempeh, or enough wheat gluten to make probably 6 lbs. or thereabouts of seitan.

So, for $9+ we're getting a small amount of a grossly expensive source of "protein" in the form of a processed very high fat, very high sodium, and relatively nutritionally useless product.  Why?  Because some people miss the taste/texture of dead pigs (oh, excuse me, "spices-flavors-injected ham") and this versatile fat-delivery vehicle in a tube is the "best thing since sliced bread"

Heavy....