There's nothing more delicious than a finely prepared filet mignon. The bacon cheeseburger is an American classic. And country fried steak, another of my favorites, is a double delight. It's fried red meat.

A number of the women working in our newsroom are vegetarians. I argue that must make me a "meatatarian."

They insist that if I'd just give up red meat, I'd be healthier, I'd lose more weight and it'll be easier for me to get into shape.

But, I insist, I am in shape. Round is a shape.

Besides, I like vegetables. I grew up in rural southwest Georgia, the heart of farming country. Every summer, my brother and I shelled hamper after hamper of field peas, black-eyed peas and butter beans, and we shucked a truckload of corn, all so my mother could put up fresh vegetables for us to enjoy until the next summer when the process began again.

I love broccoli, asparagus, turnip greens and fried okra. I try to have at least one vegetable with every meal, and I don't always feel properly nourished if I don't.

I don't eat red meat at every meal. I love chicken and fish, and I'm fine with sometimes eating just vegetables as a meal.

Yet people still want to give me grief for eating red meat. There's even a new study in which researchers say diets rich in red meat can increase your chances of dying prematurely.

In this study, researchers followed a large group of men and women aged 50-71, tracking their intake of red meat and processed meats for 10 years. At the end of the decade, researchers analyzed the red-meat intake of those who died and those who were still alive to come to their conclusions.

I'm certainly no scientist, but I detect a couple of other variables that could come into play here, the most significant of which is what had these people been doing to their bodies for the 50-plus years before they became a part of this study?

If what I do to my body for the first 50 years of my life has no bearing on my life-expectancy, then I'm eating Wendy's double cheeseburgers for lunch every day for the next five years. Supersized.

I know that's not reality. I know that man cannot live by bacon cheeseburger alone. But life without an occasional one ain't so great, either.

We should have balance and moderation in our lives. A little steak isn't going to kill me, if I also mix it with some fresh vegetables and some fruit as part of my regular diet.

Of course, balance and moderation sometimes get out of kilter. Consider what's being offered this summer at the concession stands at games of the West Michigan Whitecaps, a Detroit Tigers minor-league baseball team. It's even too much for an admitted meatatarian like me.

The Whitecaps will be offering a 4-pound, 4,800-calorie burger to fans. The behemoth features five beef patties, five slices of cheese, nearly a cup of chili and liberal doses of salsa and corn chips, all on an 8-inch sesame-seed bun. Your cholesterol level goes up 20 points just thinking about ordering one.

Actually, the $20 price tag doesn't sound too bad, considering the last time I went to a baseball game, a beer and a bag of peanuts cost me 12 bucks.

But it is a whole lot of food, especially for one person. The team said fans can divide the burger with a pizza cutter and share it, which seems the sane approach. But it promises that anyone who eats the entire burger in one sitting will receive a special T-shirt.

There's no word on if the shirt will say, "I just clogged every artery in my body and all I got was this stupid T-shirt."

What they ought to give instead of a T-shirt is a pack of Alka-Seltzer, a lifetime supply of Lipitor and the phone number of a good cardiologist.

Mitch Clarke is executive editor of The Times. His column appears Sundays in The Times. Read previous columns on gainesvilletimes.com. Originally published March 29, 2009.