The truth is, I like hamburgers … I’ve liked them since I was five years old, when my family used to drive down to McDonalds by the San Francisco Bay and I would have a kid hamburger, a vanilla shake and fries with lots of ketchup. No one ever suggested that a hamburger was anything but wholesome back then. In fact, in third grade we discussed that the hamburger has all four food groups — meat, vegetables (tomato and lettuce), bread (bun) and dairy (cheese.) It was the perfect food, and the symbol of America. There would be nothing wrong with eating a hamburger every day, but in childhood we ate them only once a week.

As a young adult I eventually decided that I preferred pizza to hamburgers, but I still enjoyed the latter with no health concerns until sometime or so the HB began to be brought up during disscussions of cholesterol and heart disease and clogged arteries. I looked askance at the hamburger now. How could I not have known that something so juicy and flavorful could actually be killing me while lulling my anxiety with its high fat content (a documented phenom — fatty foods calm you down).

This culminated in a story from the DFW Writer’s Workshop, in which a veteran member sat late into the night, eating hamburgers and other fatty foods at Denny’s, and then went home to sleep and died of a massive heart attack before he even had the chance to see another dawn or write another word. Two a.m., hamburger, six a.m., dead. It was as simple as that.

I really cut back on hamburgers after I heard that stories. But sometimes I make exceptions. Like today, when I spent the morning getting my classroom set up for the new school year, and after that reported to the old house to help clean out the garage. Now, that is a tough day, and what’s more I forgot to pack a lunch. A trip to Sonic was indicated. I invited Pia and my ten year old daughter to indulge with me. When they brought the food to the car, I held up the burger and said, “It’s not, I suppose, as bad as a cigarette, which they used to call a ‘coffin nail,’ but I have to tell you the truth, I believe that every hamburger you eat shortens your life a bit.”

“What, you mean that you eat a hamburger, you die five minutes sooner?”

“No, not at all. It’s way more than five minutes, especially if you’re over 40. By the time you’re 60, you daren’t touch one.”

I didn’t tell her then about the website my mother told me about, Live to 100.com. They ask you 40 questions and then tell you how long they think you’ll live. Last time I took it, I got 93 years. They didn’t ask about hamburgers, but they did ask how often I eat red meat.  ”Not often,” I clicked. “Not often anymore.”

These days I drive through the verdant countryside outside Denton and try to catch a glimpse of the beautiful cattle, their red fur shining in the sun, grazing on the green grass, and when I see them, I think “you are all going to be made into hamburgers.” It seems like a sacriledge, for such beautiful creatures to be killed and then suffer the additional indiginity of being ingested. But they will have their revenge, won’t they? Because if you eat too many hamburgers, you yourself will die sooner. I’m sorry, but I really believe this. Even if I’m laughing as I write it. Dr. Dean Ornish did a bunch of research and wrote a book about it. If you’re willing to eat dry, tasteless stuff, you’ll live longer. So make that hamburger last, chew each bite 100 times, and don’t eat one every day. That’s my advice, and that’s my practice, to deal with hamburger guilt.