Nutritional Masturbation

This is a term that I coined a couple of years ago. It is meant to reflect the consumption of veggie burgers and other fake meat-like products. This all started about eight years ago, when I became closely associated with a particular religious group. This group publicly promoted the avoidance of certain "unclean" animals while privately endorsing refraining from all meat products (There are reasons for both positions however this is not the focus of this blog).
Anyway, members of this group would invite me over to their homes at least a couple of times a week to introduce me to a healthier way of eating. After a while, I began to notice that they had a special food language and every one knew it. They would say "Wham" when they meant Ham and place garden in front of the word burger.

The veggie meat looked a lot like the real deal (just tasted like a bucket of salt). These people took pride in how closely they could make their meal favor the real thing. I quickly became assimilated into this culture and began popping my blood pressure medicine like they were M&Ms. This was the good life, or at least that was what I was told.
Then like Paul on the road to Damascus, I was enlightened. This happened during one of their church services when the pastor was warning us males against masturbation (It was actually a men's workshop and only men were invited because only men masturbate, right). He said and I quote "If you masturbate you are still committing a sin because although you are not doing it physically, mentally you are." That was powerful....It was so powerful I had to repeat it "If you masturbate you are still committing a sin because although you are not doing it physically, mentally you are," then I repeated it again "If you masturbate you are still committing a sin because although you are not physically eating pork, when you bite into that veggie rib, you mentally are."