AlterNet: How the Food Industry Has Made Bacon a Weapon of Mass Destruction

[marmar]

Gonzo Gastronomy: How the Food Industry Has Made Bacon a Weapon of Mass Destruction

By Arun Gupta, AlterNet. Posted July 23, 2009.

The confluence of factory farming, the boom in fast food and manipulation of consumer taste created processed foods that can hook us like drugs.




Among my fondest childhood memories is savoring a strip of perfectly cooked bacon that had just been dragged through a puddle of maple syrup. It was an illicit pleasure; varnishing the fatty, salty, smoky bacon with sweet arboreal sap felt taboo. How could such simple ingredients produce such riotous flavors?

That was then. Today, you don't need to tax yourself applying syrup to bacon -- McDonald's does it for you with the McGriddle. It conveniently takes an egg, American cheese and pork and nestles it between pancakelike biscuits suffused with genuine fake-maple-syrup flavor.

The McGriddle is just one moment in an era of extreme food combinations -- a moment in which bacon plays a starring role, from high cuisine to low.

There is: bacon ice cream; bacon-infused vodka; deep-fried bacon; chocolate-dipped bacon; bacon-wrapped hot dogs filled with cheese (which are fried, then battered and fried again); brioche bread pudding smothered in bacon sauce; hard-boiled eggs coated in mayonnaise encased in bacon -- called, appropriately, the "heart attack snack"; bacon salt; bacon doughnuts, cupcakes and cookies; bacon mints; "baconnaise," which Jon Stewart described as "for people who want to get heart disease but too lazy to actually make bacon"; Wendy's "Baconnator" -- six strips of bacon mounded atop a half-pound cheeseburger -- which sold 25 million in its first eight weeks; and the outlandish bacon explosion -- a barbecued meat brick composed of 2 pounds of bacon wrapped around 2 pounds of sausage. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/story/141498/gonzo_gastronomy%3A_how_the_food_industry_has_made_bacon_a_weapon_of_mass_destruction/

[Buzz Clik]

1. LOL! Someone needs to tell Arun Gupta to quit eating McDogfood.

[angstlessk]

2. This came as a surprise to me..I guess I just don't eat enough fast food

just last evening I was contemplating spoon bread and recalled how my mom kept a tin of bacon grease beside her stove and thought how long it had been since I had a slice of bacon...seems butter is a substitute for bacon grease in most recipes for spoon bread..who knew?

[here_is_to_hope]

3. I have a tin full of bacon grease next to my stove...

Gosh, I feel old! lol!
I learned it from my Mother who, well you know.
When it gets too full, I pour it on my dogs food.
I use it on almost everything I cook up-especially corn tortillas.

[Wednesdays]

4. K&R

:kick:

[tridim]

5. IMO bacon should only be used as a flavor enhancer..

Never as a main dish.

I also find it interesting that bacon was created as a result of lack of refrigeration (salted, cured meat), yet today's bacon spoils in about 3 days in the fridge. WTF?

[burning rain]

6. I guess I'm with ya.

Just eating strips of bacon is something I rarely do -- all that seasoning at once. But I do like it on pizza or in pasta.

[Yuugal]

7. K&R for bacon nt