July 4, 2020

by drplasticpicker

FISE stands for Financial Independence to Save the Earth. And today Dr. Plastic Picker was FISE. When I successfully made vegan black beans burgers – the earth, my net worth and our family’s health all won today. When I stumble upon a great project, I know I need to dive right in. I, Dr. Plastic Picker, your local litter picking and wannabe vegan pediatrician, am committed to perfecting several recipes for several different kinds of vegan burgers for my family. I made my first batch today for July 4th, and unanimously our family loved them. I just finished chatting with our culinarily-talented tween daughter. The girl has made her own brioche and can whip up her own quiche with her eyes closed. And she said “I loved them. They were delicious the softer texture compared to the store-bought ones. It went well with the toppings. And knowing how much more affordable they are made them even more delicious.”

I have learned now that I am more of an intuitive cook than a precise cook. The above burger I came up with after I glanced at a few recipes on line. I ended up using a pound of precooked instapot black beans and red beans that I had made the day before. I had already cooked them and it was flavored with some garlic salt and some onion. I added a cup of oatmeal, a handful of chopped up parsley from the garden, a few turns of salt, fewer turns of pepper, and dashed some more garlic salt in. I used one avocado to bind it all together. Also a tablespoon of chipolte adobo sauce swirled in the mixture. And that is it. I used the hand blender in a big bowel to combine everything. I just did it enough until it seemed the right texture. I wanted some black beans to still be visible, because I was trying to proudly make a black bean burger. Then I shaped them into 1/2-2/3 cup burgers and refrigerated for 2-3 hours.

After chilling and forming, I took the burgers out from our garage refrigerator and nervously brought them into the kitchen. I cooked them on the skillet with oil for 9 minutes turning them several times. They looked beautiful. Our daughter whipped together a chipolte mayonaises dressing with just mixing the vegan mayo and chipolte adobo sauce. And we had my first attempt at homemade vegan black bean burger for our July 4th meal. The family’s reaction, unanimous approval! Even Mr. Plastic Picker ate the entire thing! The above recipe was enough for 7 burgers. We ate 4, and I froze 3 for a meal later in the week.

I feel comfortable with the cooking method now that I will try to experiment over the next few weeks with different spices and maybe with chickpeas as well. But the greatest things is that is was so easy and we saved so much money. Since our tween daughter has wanted to eat more vegan and vegetarian, we have been buying vegan burger patties of several brands at Sprouts. They have been of varying prices and tastes, but none of them is fantastic and they all have high salt content. We love the Beyond Beef products but those are not cheap. And the whole point of this journal of environmentalist and less plastic is to try to make some things at home, and reduce the plastic packaging much of our food comes in. And even vegan burgers bought at the organic grocer comes in plastic.

But my vegan burgers did not! No plastic! And I realized that making my own vegan black bean burgers is so FISE!

Here is my nutritional, financial and environmental analysis:

	Beef Burger	Sprout’s Brand Vegan Burger	Burger Lounge Vegan Burger	Dr. PP Black-Bean Vegan Burger
Fiber	0	4 g	4 g	4 g
Salt	45 mg	240 mg	2327 mg	200 mg
Iron	1.5 mg	1 mg	0	3.3 mg
Cost	$1	$1	$8	$0.16
CO2	++++++	++	+++	+
Plastic	+	++	++++	0

That was so fun doing an analysis of the health, environmental, and financial benefits of making our own vegan burgers. We typically buy at least one package a week. Next time I am going to double the recipe and just freeze them. I might throw in some chia or flax seed to add some more iron and fiber, and looking forward to playing around with the spices. We used parsley from our garden as well that was going to go to waste. One of the reasons why our vegan black bean burgers are so affordable, is because we have started buying our beans in bulk! We used to go to Burger Lounge for gourmet vegan and grass-fed beef burgers, but no matter what there is a lot of food packaging waste afterwards. After a family meal, we would be easily out $50 and still hungry after a teeny tiny burger. And the mark-up from eating home-made vegan burgers to store bought vegan burgers is 6X, and the mark-up to eating at a fancy organic burger joint is 50X.

Again, it’s perfectly fine to eat out once in a while. But after picking up strewn McDonalds trash this morning about 2 blocks from the beach – I think of all fast food places (organic or not) as sources of ocean pollution. I’d rather save my money and make my own vegan burgers and do dishes in my house. I feel so good today that our family is FISEr by the moment, because we are eating homemade vegan black bean burgers!

Like my take on personal finance? Read the previous post on The Road to FISE https://drplasticpicker.com/top-10-best-financial-decisions-i-have-made/