In trying to reform my eating habits, one of the great struggles for me is eating my vegetables.  While I can eat all sorts of cooked vegetables (especially with tons of butter) the real challenge lay in raw foods like salad.  Strangely, I have to credit Wendy’s “Junior Bacon Cheeseburger” with easing my transition to healthier foods.

For those who don’t know, the JBC is a essentially a small cheeseburger with mayonnaise, lettuce, tomato, and bacon.  When I first started getting them, I used to take the lettuce, tomato, and mayo off.  Then, one day I was in a hurry and forgot to order it without the veggies.  It wasn’t as bad as I’d feared.  I still wasn’t sold on the whole “salad on a sandwich” thing, but bacon covers a multitude of sins.

Over the years, I stopped changing the JBC and ordered it as-is… and I got used to it.  In a very real sense, it was the Junior Bacon Cheeseburger (emphasis on the Bacon) that allowed me to stop dreading lettuce and tomatoes.  I’m still not a fan of onions and peppers, but between different kinds of lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, spinach, and the like I can still eat a respectable salad.

I think it’s funny to see all of the posts by vegetarians about how “bacon is a gateway meat”, since for me it’s been the exact opposite.  Without bacon, I probably would still not eat salads, or at least not as frequently.

Bacon really is my favorite vegetable.

So next time you want to healthy up a breakfast sandwich, perhaps tossing an egg on a simple BLT (Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato) sandwich might be the way to go.  I know that I’ve cut the calorie count of my breakfasts at Denny’s Pantry substantially by ordering their B.E.L.T. instead of an omelet or pancakes.