The Bacon Revolution

What in the name of salt, fat and calories is going on in America?

Bacon appears to be the new bling...or something.

Have you noticed how it's become chic to assert one's passion for the tasty meat that used to spend most of its time modestly reclining between the lettuce and tomato in your sandwich?

Bacon curtains

While I readily admit that it is the cornerstone of that sandwich (and is equally fabulous when cozying up to avocado and hard boiled eggs), it's still just, well, bacon.

Bacon sneaks

Between Michele Obama flexing her wondrous arms as she warns against childhood obesity and Dr. Oz forcing women to stroke decaying body parts on his show in order to promote a healthy lifefestyle, bacon has apparently become a symbol of defiance.

I just put real bacon
on a boo boo.

Recent case in point: I was reading a new blog I thought I might enjoy and found the first sentence in the writer's short bio went something like this: "I love bacon and don't care who knows it."

This was not a food blog. Not even close.

This woman had many fine accomplishments but the very first thing she chose to use in self-description was her love for bacon. I haven't looked at her blog since.

After too much bacon
kills you, you can
be buried in this.

Whether she meant to be tongue-in cheek or actually thinks that a defiant stance on bacon is a form of rebellion  -- despite the knowledge that if eaten often and in large quantities, your heart may attack you -- bacon is neither illegal nor hard to obtain.

It's been around for ever, is often on sale two-for-one at the market and is a choice of cured breakfast meat. It's not a philosophy, doctrine, creed or principle.

Bacon is, absolutely, a delicious addition to many things such as an omelet, quiche or spinach salad.

And, yes, it would be mad handy to throw in the other direction if a grizzly bear is following you and, lately, it's been coated with chocolate, crumbled atop ice cream and stood straight up in milk shakes as a garnish. But it's bacon, people, not world peace

Hey, I loved
me some bacon.

Liking it is grand. Who doesn't like it? But it is not a sign that you are the new James Dean...or, even the next Paula Deen.

So, continue to enjoy your bacon. But, please, leave it out of your strategy to rebel against the ever-growing list of politically correct directives being churned out by the media faster than Kim Kardashian can get divorced.

It's true that in the name of freedom for all, you can't say this or smoke there or even think that, but are we that neutered a society that loving bacon has become a manifesto of revolution?

Maybe.

If you want to shock or impress your parents, friends, readers, teachers, camp counselors or that woman from California Closets who came by to give you a free estimate-no obligation, leave bacon out of it. This is what heroin or booze are for...not bacon, at least until they lace it with PCP.

I will admit, however, that I am now in the mood for a tuna club...extra bacon.

I had nothing to do
with any of this.

Neither did I.