There's WHAT in that burger?

Since I started eating paleo, I've been paying a lot more attention to what's in different products. Fillers, additives; really, there's a lot of random crap in mass produced products. The majority of the time I try to cook all my own meals and use simple ingredients, so I don't encounter a ton of crazy stuff. Last night, however, was a bit different.

My hockey team runs a booth at the football stadium in town. In addition to slinging beer, we also offer burgers, fries, onion rings - all your standard fried foods. With the onion rings, fries, popcorn shrimp, honestly - I expect them to be full of assorted crap. I'm about to drop them into hot oil; there's really no pretending that they're in any way going to be good for you. But man, was I shocked by the burger patties.

We sell four different burgers: hamburger, bison, chicken and soy. I was plesantly surprised by the bison burgers - they are made by this company and contained about four ingredients (ground bison and three spices). Good start, right?

This whole examination actually started because of the hamburgers. We happened to notice the caloric content label on the box and we thrown for a loop that the burger patty came in at around 500. Just the patty. And unlike the bison, these are 4oz instead of 6. Still need to add a bun, possibly some cheese, and some condiments. So we were like "hm, what the hell is in here that is jacking it up?" The answer? A crapton of chemicals, some random bread crumbs, yeast, maybe milk. Really, whatever they had laying around.

The box of chicken burgers actually freaked me out the most. I've never liked them, to be perfectly honest - they look creepy straight out of the box. What was the last ingredient on the huge list? Propylene glycol. Honestly, I don't care if something has been "approved" as a food additive; if it goes into antifreeze, I don't think I should be eating it with my dinner.

I guess I can take solace in the bison burgers. At least there's one product in our booth I wouldn't feel terrible eating. But if anything, the bison burgers make me wonder - is there not maybe an equivalent beef product that we could be serving instead of the patty of doom?