Unless you’re vegetarian or vegan, you probably love bacon. And even if you’re vegetarian, you might still love the smell of bacon cooking. Bacon is so popular there is even an official sanctioned Church of Bacon and National Bacon Day, which is the Saturday before Labor Day. Why do we love bacon so much? A recent study found that people find bacon to be the most addictive food. A few things could cause that addiction. People have a natural craving for foods with salt, sugar, or fat and bacon has 2 of the 3. Add some maple syrup and you have hit the trifecta. Also, it could be the smell of bacon may bring back fond memories from your childhood.
14 Bacon facts
- Bacon can be dated back to 1500 BCE. The Chinese were the first to cook salted pork bellies, making bacon one of the world’s oldest processed meats.
- American bacon is made from the pork belly, which explains the streaks of fat. European and Canadian bacon are still made from the back meat of the pig, which is much leaner.
- About 70% of the bacon consumed in the U.S. is eaten at breakfast.
- In the U.S., there are 67,000 pig farms that produce the bacon on your table.
- Each year over 2 billion pounds of bacon is produced in the States.
- The average American consumes about 18 lbs. each year.
- Bacon accounts for 18% of all pork consumption in the U.S.
- The Danish consumes the most pork in the world.
- All 50 states have pig farms. However, the 10 states with the most pig farms include Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, and Oklahoma.
- China is the largest pork producer. Europe comes in second, followed by the United States.
- About 11% of a pig’s weight is bacon, so a 200 lb. pig can produce about 20 pounds of bacon.
- The pork production industry generates about 35,000 full-time jobs and 550,000 jobs indirectly.
- In the 1980s bacon sales fell because of a lean meat craze, but in 1992 Hardee’s debuted a bacon cheeseburger that put bacon back on top.
- During World War II, Americans were urged to save bacon fat and other meat drippings to be used in the manufacture of bombs. The fat was used to make glycerol, an ingredient in explosives.
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Sources:
National Pork Producers Council
USDA
Lunds And Byerlys
Mental Floss
Portable Press
PorkCares.org
LifeHack.org
InsideHook.com