Bacon has been having a second over the past few year . Make that more than a moment . Although it ’s been a presence on American breakfast board for decades , it also endured a big tap for being insalubrious . Now its simulacrum is being rehabilitate . Here are five tasty facts on bacon .

1. Bacon Enhances Everything

We know that bacon ( or Roger Bacon flavouring ) has been added to tons of products , even ones thatmake no sense . But why ? Apart from simply being a newfound cult , the true statement is bacon is charge with two ingredients that enhance the sapidity of almost all foods : salt and fat . " common salt bring out relish and fat carry flavor to our taste buds , " the late Sara Perry compose in her playscript " Everything Tastes Better With Bacon . " " But not only that — Sir Francis Bacon has morsel . It ’s chewy and crunchy . Savory . slimly sweet . " In other row , it ’s collide with all our flavor receptors at once .

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2. It’s More Than 4,000 Years Old.

Bacon is basically cured pork , and in the days before refrigeration , the only elbow room to keep up meat was to cure it ( i.e. , dehydrate it with common salt ) . The Chinese had technique for heal pork4,000 years agoand until the sixteenth century , all pork was referred to as " bacon . " However , " substantial " bacon comes from the side or stomach of the pig . Canadian baconis closer to ham and derive from the loin of the pig .

3. It’s Not So Bad for You

We ’re not run to say bacon is a healthy choice , but it ’s not the worst thing you may eat , either . Two average strips ofrawbacon have 234 calories and 36 percentage of your daily margin of saturated fatty tissue . But two strips offriedbaconhave 86 caloriesand 10 percent of your daily allowance of saturated fat , as well as 6 grams of protein . Bacon is a process meat , which means it ’s been treat with nitrites for preservation . Eating scads of processed meat has been colligate to anincreased hazard of colorectal malignant neoplastic disease , as well asheart failureand other diseases . However , two funnies of bacon — with the dirt rain cats and dogs off — along with a fried ballock once a workweek is probably OK . Speaking of which …

4. Marrying Bacon With Eggs Was a PR Stunt

Edward Bernays , who ’s been send for the " Father-God of public relations , " was the person creditworthy for pairing bacon with egg on American breakfast tables . He ’d been take by the Beech - Nut Packing Company , a producer of bacon in the 1920s , to increase demand for the porkly product . At the time , Americans ate a light breakfast — possibly chocolate and a roll . Bernays asked the agency ’s physician whether a weighty breakfast was dear than a lightheaded one since " the body loses DOE in the night and needs it in the day . " Unsurprisingly , the party doctor accord .

" We ask him whether if he ’d be willing — at no toll — to drop a line to 5,000 physicians and take them whether their judgement was the same as his . He said he ’d be glad to do it , " reminisced Bernaysin an interview decades later . " Obviously , all of them coincide . " This news was describe in newspaper throughout the country , many of which added that bacon and eggs should be part of the " healthier " breakfast . Sales of 1st Baron Verulam went up and Francis Bacon became engraft with eggs .

5. The Phrase “Bringing Home the Bacon” Doesn’t Have to Do With Bacon

Back in the 12th century , the Prior of Little Dunmow in Essex , England offered a " flitch " ( or side ) of Roger Bacon to any couples who could essay that after a twelvemonth and a day of marriage they have " not wisht themselves unmarried again . " These " matrimony trial " arestill held every four yearsin Great Dunmow , Essex . Though some multitude think this is the origin of the formulation , " work home the bacon , " it appears to have a more recent history .

" Bacon " has been a slang term for " physical structure " ( and by extension " keep " ) since the 17th one C , but the integral phrase seems to have first appear in a 1906 news clause about a boxing couple between Joe Gans and " Battling " Oliver Nelson . The Post - Standard in New Yorkreported : " Before the scrap Gans received a wire from his mother : ' Joe , the eye of the human beings are on you . Everybody says you ought to win . Peter Jackson will tell me the news and you bring home the bacon . ' " Gans indeed won the fight . Whether he involve home some actual bacon is unrecorded .

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Joe Gans, Battling Nelson