Anything I could possibly say about the joys of bacon would be superfluous and redundant. We are a bacon nation, and we put it on burgers, salads, sandwiches, and just about anything else that can be eaten. Chocolate bacon is heaven on earth. Bacon is bad for you, your heart and your survival. Pure fried cholesterol, bacon dedicates all its time to clogging up your arteries, hanging off your waste, enlarging your thighs, and making you jowly, which is great if you are trying out for department store Santa, bad if you want your jeans to fit for one more day. The variety of bacon in the supermarket cooler is only equaled by the sausage section right next to it. For some mysterious, if not wholly mystical, reason, we love to cure white pork fat, fry it, and pig out, as it were. If there is one more slice of bacon on the plate, I will eat it, regardless of the number of pieces I have already eaten. Eating bacon is almost as bad as smoking, and certainly the long term effects are as bad or worse. I’m not going to compare bacon to sex for all sorts of reasons, but common decency should rule even when discussing sex. Bacon I’m not so sure about. Let’s face it people: America is obese and bacon isn’t helping the situation at all. I adore bacon that is particularly crunchy and overdone, bordering on burnt. The crisp crunch between my teeth, the sweet taste of fat, the fine smoked aroma of hickory or mesquite all add to its strange allure. Nobody needs to eat bacon for any reason at all other than pure self-centered egotism and self-indulgence. I wouldn’t, however, turn it down if someone passed me the bacon platter. Bacon does not help with digestion, it contains no essential vitamins as far as anyone knows, and a piece the size of a domino meets an average adult’s entire daily need for fat. Who ever ate a piece of bacon the size of a domino? So I live with this self-indulgent vice which is bacon. The best way to avoid bacon is to just leave it in the store and forget about it. Yet, the smell of frying bacon is so toxically magic that no one can resist it, and of course, the only thing I cannot resist is temptation itself.
