Bacon

Bacon schmacon. We can take it or leave it.

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Bacon is a pork product commonly known by the public to be a guilty pleasure; it's tasty but also unhealthy. If you're Jewish or Muslim, you're missing out.

Cancer

In 2015, the World Health Organization stated habitual processed meat (including bacon) consumption increases the risk of colorectal cancers by eighteen percent.

In 2018, The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) found that there was sufficient evidence that processed meat (e.g., bacon, sausage, ham, corned beef, hot dogs, and jerky) causes cancer of the colorectum. IARC found that there were also "[p]ositive associations have been observed between consumption of processed meat and cancer of the stomach." Additionally, IARC found that there was limited evidence that consumption of red meat (including bacon) has a positive association with cancers of the pancreas and prostate. What this means is that the more processed meat (and possibly even red meat) that you eat, the more likely it is that you will get cancer.

Processed meats are also known to contain three different classes of chemicals that are carcinogenic in rodents: heterocyclic aromatic amines, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and nitrosamines.

Health claims

Bacon has good fat

Bacon fat breakdown

50%	Monounsaturated
40%	Saturated fat
10%	Polyunsaturated

While it is true that 50% percent of bacon fat is monounsaturated (a "good" fat), and also contains some omega-3 fatty acids (very good fats). Bacon also has a very high percentage of total fat, as well as bad or saturated fat (40%). Bacon is also high in salt, and a high salt diet is associated with high blood pressure.

Bacon (and other processed meats) can still be incorporated in a healthy diet, it just has to be consumed in low amounts and only occasionally. This moderate consumption is not practiced in America and Canada due to Bacon mania.

Bacon has nutritional value

Bacon is an excellent source of protein and contains decent amounts of minerals. The beneficial nutritional aspects of bacon are outweighed by the negative aspects of bacon, and those beneficial aspects can all be easily obtained from more healthy sources such as olive oil, poultry and fish.

Propaganda

See the main article on this topic: Propaganda

Following a trend in the 1980s in the US of healthier eating and the understanding that saturated fat and cholesterol were unhealthy, the price of pork bellies (from which bacon is derived) collapsed to as low as 19¢ per pound. US pork producers had to export the pork bellies to Easter Europe to make any profit at all. Enter marketing: the National Pork Board began pushing bacon into various products, especially fast food hamburgers.

• "It's better with bacon."
• "Everything goes with bacon."
• "Even cats are improved by bacon."

• 

  Uh… maybe not.

• 

  Definitely not.

Pray unto thee

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References

For those of you in the mood, RationalWiki has a fun article about Bacon.