I love it when I can find a tasty meat alternative that when you compare the nutritional facts to regular meat, the veggie comes out on top! I had always been a bit skittish around fake deli meats, thinking they were going to smell and taste like my dog’s rubber chew toys. I finally took the big step a while back and tried Lightlife’s Smart Deli Baked Ham and it’s quickly landed a spot on my weekly grocery list.

One 5.5 oz box will run you about $3.40 and give you 12 slices. They taste much like deli ham, but less salty. Sandwiched between two pieces of whole wheat bread, I layered on some Veganaise, 3 slices of these “veggie protein slices”, spinach, a couple of avocado slices, and a tomato slice or two.  Delicious!

Here’s a list of ingredients:

Water, wheat gluten, soy protein isolate, evaporated cane juice, less than 2% of: tapioca starch, natural flavor (from vegetable sources), autolyzed yeast extract, natural smoke flavor, sea salt, carrageenan, potassium chloride, tomato pulp, soy sauce (wheat, soybeans, salt), citric acid, fermented rice flour, salt, xanthan gum, paprika oleoresin (for flavor & color).

Now for the good stuff: (this is for my non-vegan friends who visit my blog to prove that I don’t sit around eating blocks of tofu wrapped in lettuce).

I serving size is 4 slices and you’re looking at 70 calories, compared to 91 calories for just 2 slices of regular ham. Smart Deli Ham has…drumroll please…just 1 gram of fat per 4 slices! while our beloved Miss Piggy has 4.82 grams–1.6 of those grams are saturated fat. While SM has 390 mg of sodium for those 4 slices, regular ham passes on a whopping 730mg of sodium–and that’s just for 2 slices! And for all those worried us vegans do not get enough protein, let me assure you that one serving gives you 12 grams of protein compared to only 9.3 grams for only 2 slices of Babe. And one last thing…Smart Deli ham is naturally cholesterol free, while the other has 32mg of the nasty stuff.

(It’s the little things in life that get me excited…) 🙂

Check out more products by Lightlife who uses organic ingredients and does not use soybeans that were produced using biotechnology. Gotta love it.