While in the supermarket last night to pick up some eggs, I got a craving for some breakfast sausage.  Now, I know how utterly unhealthy sausages are, but they’re one of my favorite foods.  I like them in links, patties, mixed in with stuffing, anything, you name it.  Mmm mmm mmm!

I also want to shake up my morning breakfast routine a bit.  A girl can only take so much cereal and milk before she goes bonkers!  As I was looking for a healthy alternative, it was hard to resist other unhealthy foods I like, such as pepperoni slices.  They were on sale and I was very tempted to buy them, but I - thankfully - walked way instead.

So instead of buying regular sausage, I bought, believe it or not:

Gimme Lean Ground Sausage Style Veggie Protein

Yep, that’s right: MEAT FREE “sausage,” or more accurately, it’s ground sausage-style veggie protein.  As a huge meat eater, that sounds pretty unappetizing to me.  But I am determine to lower the amount of animal fats in my diet, so I thought “Hey, whynot? Just try it.”

And this morning, I did.  I browned two small patties in a bit of olive oil.  When I was forming the patties, they didn’t feel like real sausage.  The “meat” wasn’t as greasy or cold as the real thing.  There was no congealed fat to give that compact, molded-together feeling you get when working with ground meat.  Also, as I was cooking, there definitely was no smell of breakfast sausage in the air (and I believe you me, I know and love that smell).  Once they were browned (only a few minutes on each side), they did look like real sausage patties.  I put them on a plate, poured myself a glass of non-fat milk (dairy is important to fat loss, I’ll elaborate more on that in another post) for my first dry, bland, and crumbly bite.

It never came.  Instead, I tasted something that was indeed very much like a sausage patty!  If someone were to feed me what I had this morning without telling me it was fake meat, I never would have guessed it.  It wasn’t as greasy and juicy as a real sausage patty, but it was still close to the real thing.  I had a hard time believing my tastebuds, but once my two dogs started begging for a piece, I realized that Gimme Lean had created a great thing.  This definitely will have a regular home in my fridge from now on.

I also picked up some non-fat cottage cheese (again with the dairy) and there was a sale on Special K protein and fiber powder drink mix, so I got a box of 7 packets in the pink lemonade flavor.  I’m still not eating healthy, but I am making more and more healthier choices.