A Surprise from the Packaged Meats Industry

I don't eat a lot of meat, but my family does. But I do remember from
my meat-eating days just how good bacon can taste. I used to love the
taste of crispy, thick bacon slices, particularly the Danish kind
(since that is my heritage).

Recently, we bought a large bag of Hormel "Real Bacon Bits" at Sam's
Club. The packaged promised the "delicious taste of real, fresh
premium bacon" and was a good buy for a year's supply (the way it
usually goes when you buy something at one of those club stores like
Sam's or Costco.)

It was when I looked a little closer that I became concerned about
what my family had been adding to their salad and baked potatoes. On
the front of the bag I found an interesting slogan, "Made from Picnic
Bacon" which caught my curiosity. I don't recall ever hearing that
term before, have you? "Picnic Bacon" sounds so nice -- it sounds like
a summer outing on a beautiful day, eating a nice BLT sandwich under
the trees and watching the ants carry away half of the meal.

Putting aside my winter thoughts of a pleasant picnic, I looked into
what this meant. It turns out that "Picnic Bacon" is not a pretty
thing. It may have a nice sounding name, but it is really not a meat
you should consume. Picnic Bacon turns out to be the most undesirable
parts of the pig -- seriously, you don't want to know what parts --
which has been "fabricated" to approach the appearance of bacon. It is
just barely considered something fit for human consumption, and it
wouldn't be eaten, not by you, me or anyone else, if it didn't have
this pleasant little name and the "fabricated bacon" look.

Shame on you Hormel. I wonder how many other surprises there are in
the consumer packaged food business? Got any other good ones?

Dave

Full text article above extracted from http://shamvswham.blogspot.com/
.

Relevant Pages

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