As a kid frequenting Sizzler with my parents (yes, the Food Gal did haunt that establishment back in the day), my Dad would always order a filet mignon for me.

Because it was smaller than the other cuts on the menu, it was the perfect size for a smaller eater. It was always tender, too, a good choice for a kid who didn’t like chewing too much.

As I got older, and started cutting back on the amount of red meat I ate, filet mignon still popped up in my diet, but much less frequently. As my taste buds changed, I started enjoying it less, too, because it was always a little lacking in the flavor department, if you know what I mean.

Enter filet mignon made from bison. (Not to be confused with buffalo, which are a whole different species, even though the two terms are commonly used interchangeably.)

Before Northern Europeans settled North America, there were upwards of 70 million bison on the continent. But by 1889, after overzealous slaughtering, less than 1,000 bison remained. In 1905, the American Bison Society was formed to protect the animals from extinction. Today, thanks to efforts from ranchers, bison number more than 350,000.

Two such bison ranchers are Ken Klemm and Peter Thieriot, otherwise known as the Buffalo Guys (see what I mean about interchangeable terms?). Their herd of about 500 bison graze in northwest Kansas. They also contract with other ranchers in Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, and Montana. Together, they sell ramge-raised, hormone-free, antibiotic-free bison meat in stores nationwide and on the Web.

Leaner than beef, buffalo meat even has fewer calories and less fat (including saturated) than skinless chicken breast. It also has more iron than beef, pork or chicken.

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Sure, there are fancier burgers. There are even more expensive burgers.

But Snake River Farms American Style Kobe Beef burger patties are pretty hard to beat.

And this is coming from a Food Gal who is not typically much of a Burger Gal, either.

The huge, 1/2-pound patties are made of American-style Kobe — Japanese Wagyu cows that have been crossed with American Black Angus ones. If you’ve ever experienced the over-the-top, fatty heaven known as Kobe beef, then you have an inkling of what these burgers are like.

If fat indeed equates flavor, these burgers are exploding with both. Take a deep breath and let me fill you in. Each of these patties alone has 750 calories — 610 of those from fat. Yowza! Indeed, each patty has more than 104 percent of a person’s daily recommended allotment of fat, and 126 percent of your daily value of saturated fat. Lordy, that’s a true case of too much information, if there ever was one.

It would be an understatement to say that you probably can’t eat these burgers too often — and still live to tell about it. But boy, what a treat at least once.

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