AYE! AYE!

I agree!

My 75 year old mother recently had a cartoid artery bypass operation. Her artery in her heart was so full of rock hard plaque it was impossible to scrape out all the hardening of that artery. The surgeon had to take out a vein in her leg from her groin (where the leg meets the hip) all the way down to her ankle and use that to replace the artery in her heart which was rock hard full of calcified plaque. My mother spent a week in the hospital. The surgery was over one month ago. Tomorrow my mother is going back to the hospital to have over 100 metal staples removed from her leg where the surgery was. She told me the pain is so bad, she doesn't want to go on living. Evidentially, doctors cannot do effective pain management and she is in living hell.

All four of my grandparents died of heart disease - 5 of my aunts and uncles had strokes - so cardiovascular disease runs in my family. I don't think giving up and saying "I have bad genes" is an excuse to eat high cholesterol food. I am middle aged and have very low cholesterol and good blood pressure because since I was a teenager I deliberately made an attempt to eat organic food and a whole foods diet. We are not the victims of our DNA gene code. Even hereditary factors can be turned around with good lifestyle practices.

I am always happy to see a new, family owned, small business open in such a bad economy because it creates a job for someone, it creates sales tax which helps our municipal treasury.....I am not going to be eating at Squeeze Inn unless they create just ONE healthy menu item. I am not vegan and not a vegetarian but I am health conscious and try to choose wisely with what type of food I eat.

Eating a cheese drenched burger once every month or two won't give a person cancer or heart disease - but a steady diet of this type of food is a one way ticket to the heart attack ward! Soda pop is even worse than animal fat - soda pop is made from high fructose corn syrup - the main ingredient of HFCS is GMO genetically engineered corn, drenched in pesticides, fungicides and herbicides.

The Garlic Shack opened and closed in about two months - the menu was all deep fried, fat soaked stuff - now it is a Mongolian place with more high fat, meat based menu. I know there is a client base who wants to eat at healthy cafe's - I just wish entrepeneurs would understand this and open someplace HEALTHY to eat downtown or midtown. I am totally burnt out eating at Chipolte, Hot Italian and Sugar Plum Vegan and wish there was someplace else to eat. They are all very good restaurants with organic food and healthy menu items - but I think I've eaten at all three places a zillion trillion times and would appreciate a new alternative.

Andy Nguyen's is pretty good - except the entire menu has wheat gluten and soy based ingredients in every dish - I'm allergic to gluten and soy so I have to always ask the waiter to substitute ingredients. I tried Loving Hut but don't think it is very healthy - they sell Coca Cola and lots of white, refined carbs - although there is a brown rice option. I tried Freshii once and didn't go back - sort of semi-healthy fast food - but not really that healthy - although certainly better than McDonalds.

Now about those Gardenburgers - really they are just frozen hockey pucks of GMO genetically engineered soy beans - Gardenburger uses hexane as a solvent to separate the soy bean protein from the soy oil. Hexane is banned in food use in many countries since it is known to be a neurotixin endrocrine disruptor and cause cancer.

I agree with everything in Michellefromhermac's post - but that grass fed organic beef is around $9 a pound - so I don't eat it. There is a lot of hype with the organic beef industry - most of the ranchers do indeed feed their livestock grass for PART of the time - but companies like Harris Ranch and Coleman Ranch fatten the cows up with non-organic grain the last couple of months of the life of the cow in order to fatten up the animal - and get marbling in the beef. It is the marbeling that has all the cholesterol. Grass fed for awhile then "finishing the cow off" with grain is the norm for organic beef.

Environmental Working Group has info on their website that shows how organic grass fed lamb is actually higher in cholesterol and fat than grass fed beef! Organic lamb also has a higher environmental carbon footprint than organic beef.

Good luck to Squeeze Inn - I wish them well - but I won't be a patron - i looked at their online menu and there is not even ONE healthy thing to eat. Even just one veggie stir fry dish would be nice - or a veggie burger made from scratch from whole grains and beans, seeds on a whole grain bun with veggies would be terrific.

We need a restraunt to open that understands how to honor the noble vegetale!