In honor of baseball’s opening day, while former Giant Barry Bonds may be in the headlines for ingesting or injecting some improper substances, I take great faith in current Giant Tim Lincecum for ingesting the most proper substance of all: anything but vegetables.

In an article for the USA Today, Lincecum’s favorite meal at In-N-Out Burger is revealed to be one hell of an unvegan feast. According to the report, his typical order is, “Three Double-Doubles. Two fries. A chocolate-strawberry shake. Ketchup please, but hold the lettuce and tomatoes.” You read that right: no lettuce or tomatoes. With such an order, it is no wonder that the 26-year-old 165-pounder has two Cy Young Awards and a World Series championship under his belt.

He proclaims, “I’m not a big vegetable guy,” and it’s not hard to see why. Why eat vegetables when you can be one of the best pitchers in the major leagues without them. You just know the day someone tries to slip some lettuce or tomato into his burger, his ERA is going through the roof.

So for being a great pitcher and recognizing that vegetables need no place in the diet of a finely tuned athlete, Tim Lincecum, you are a true Unvegan Hero!

(via USA Today and Dan)

EDIT: This spot is closed, but obviously Chick-fil-A and its bigotry against beef continues to thrive.

Other than having hyphenated names, In-N-Out and Chick-fil-A have some other eerie parallels. For a long time, Chick-fil-A kept itself to the south, but has since expanded. In-N-Out, on the other hand, has kept itself to the west and has hardly expanded outside of California. Both still carry an air of mystery, as they are not readily available like McDonald’s or Burger King. They are also pretty religious, with Chick-fil-A closing on Sundays and In-N-Out printing bible quotes on their packaging. And finally, their menus are both incredibly simple. Yet, their simple menus are what makes them such opposites. In-N-Out only has burgers, while Chick-fil-A only has chicken.

I didn’t even realize Chick-fil-A existed in LA until a friend told me about one in the South Bay Galleria Mall in Redondo Beach. One day for lunch, we headed over there so I could see what Chick-fil-A was all about. The menu was quite basic, with only a couple sandwiches. Apparently with their recent expansion, Chick-fil-A has decided to mix things up a bit on their menus and now offer a spicy chicken sandwich in addition to their usual. I decided to try this new one out. Each sandwich was available in two ways, with only a pickle or with a pickle, lettuce and tomato. I went with the simpler one and ordered it without the gnarly pickle. It also came with the choice of many sauces for free. This included sauces like barbecue, the special Chick-fil-A sauce and more. I chose the Chick-fil-A sauce, ranch and honey roasted BBQ so I could try each of them out.

When my name was called, I grabbed my food and joined the table my friends had chosen. Then I whipped out my meal and tried it out. The chicken was only slightly spicy, but the meat itself tasted pretty good. The bun was nice and buttery and went well with the breast of chicken. My waffle fries were actually a little disappointing, with some of them being totally uncrispy and bordering sogginess. They probably would have been a lot better if they were well-done, which is also how I have to order my fries at In-N-Out.

My experience with Chick-fil-A was actually quite underwhelming. The sandwich definitely needed more spice, but I could see how people would really like their regular chicken sandwiches. The waffle fries could use some work, too. I’ll be back because I’m sure I’ll find myself near a Chick-fil-A again, but for now I feel they could have done better.

California has more than its fair share of things to claim for itself. The state is proud of these things. Some (like skateboarding) for no apparent reason, but others are good reason to give California bragging rights. One of these things is In-N-Out Burger, the fast food that never fails to please.

In-N-Out breaks the rules of the traditional fast food restaurants. Even people who say they don’t eat fast food go to In-N-Out. Their menu is so basic that they need a secret menu to make people happy. The drive-thru lines protrude so far beyond the land that has been zoned to them that they have people walk outside to take orders. So it’s a pretty unique place, but what about the food?

For my usual order at In-N-Out, I delve into the realm of the Secret Menu, which has my favorite burger, the 4×4. The 4×4 has four patties, four slices of cheese and the rest of the regular fillings. On this day, however, I was only feeling like a 3×3, which, as you can imagine, has three of each of the aforementioned ingredients. The burgers usually come with with a special sauce that I’m pretty sure involves some sort of vegetative ingredients, so I get mine with ketchup instead. I also make sure to get it without onions or any other unfortunate vegetable they are currently trying to pass as a topping. As a side, I ordered myself some well-done fries. Typically the fries at In-N-Out disappoint, but if they are fried just a little bit longer, it makes a world of difference.

Now, the meal I had was quite good, but to be honest, it’s not the Jesus of burgers that the whole state of California makes it out to be. A lot of people say it is their favorite burger, and I just don’t know how they say that. To be sure, it is great for a fast food burger, but it cannot stack up to the competition of real burgers like Fat Burger.