The other night, my family was invited to have dinner with my brother’s family. We enjoyed tacos. As a side dish, we had refiried beans, made by Old El Paso. Halfway through dinner, we were informed that the refried beans were eating were vegetarian style. I thought for a minute, then asked “What kind of meat is in the traditional style?”. Nobody knew for sure. I knew they had Traditional and Fat Free refired beans, but wasn’t sure about vegetarian. This prompted me to visit my local Kroger store to do a little research. This is what I came up with comparing nutrition labels of the Traditional, Fat free and Vegetarian style Old Elpaso Refried Beans.
Content | Traditional | Vegetarian | Fat Free |
---|---|---|---|
Calories | |||
Total Fat | |||
Cholesterol | |||
Sodium | |||
Total carbs | |||
Dietary Fiber | |||
Sugars | |||
Protein |
Aside from the obvious, the biggest difference I could tell was between the traditional and the vegetarian’s ingredients list. This was a portion of the traditional style:
“Partially hydrogenated lard with BHA and BHT added to protect flavor”
Where as on the vegetarian, that part was replaced with:
“soybean oil”
I don’t want to come across as a tree huggin’ vegetarian, but since I could not tell a difference in the taste, I think I would rather eat the soybean kind.