Hamburger

Food · Other · Food, Typed Supps

A salad burger and a cheese-and-sauce burger are the same beef and the same bun with very different totals.

Stage by stage

Intake (Mouth): Bun, patty and fillings are chewed into a single mixed bolus.
Digestion (Stomach): Fat and protein slow gastric emptying, blunting the refined bun's glycaemic peak.
Absorption (Small intestine): Bile emulsifies fat from patty, cheese and sauce; beef protein is absorbed with heme iron, zinc and B12.
Load (Kidneys and circulation): Sodium enters circulation and is cleared by the kidneys; habitual intake at this level raises blood pressure.

Time to effect

Hours: Satiety holds for three to four hours; the sodium load is cleared over the following day.

Allergens

Contains: Gluten. May contain: Celery, Eggs, Milk, Mustard, Sesame, Soya, Sulphites. Derived from what this food is, not from a product label.

Eating patterns

Fits: Vegan, Vegetarian, Pescatarian, Halal, Kosher. Depends on the product: Low-FODMAP.

Satiety

134 on the satiety index, where white bread is 100 — moderate. Modelled from the Holt et al. (1995) measurements.

Cost band

Mid — roughly £4 per kg, as a band midpoint rather than a price.

Key nutrients

Nutrition per 100g

Calories: 208
Protein: 12.1g
Carbohydrate: 18g
of which sugars: 1.3g
Fat: 9.2g
of which saturated: 3.7g
Fibre: 2.6g
Sodium: 439mg

Food vs. supplement

No supplement comparison applies. The relevant comparison is between burgers: the same beef and the same roll can vary by several hundred calories and close to a gram of sodium depending on cheese, sauce, bacon and size.

Kitchen tip

Made at home, the two levers that matter most are a leaner mince cooked without pressing the patty flat, and skipping the processed cheese slice. Toasting the cut face of the bun keeps sauce from soaking in, which lets less of it go on.

Common myth

"A burger with salad is a healthy meal." In reality: Salad adds a little fibre, water and vitamin C and displaces some sauce. It does not change the sodium in the roll and fillings or the saturated fat in cheese, which are what make a burger a heavy meal.