I was amazed at the number of you who endorsed forgoing a range hood. The comments rolled in, practically faster than I could read them!
I got super excited and thrust my fist in the air, shouting – I WILL LEAD THIS REVOLUTION!
Then I started assembling a really snazzy uniform; because a good outfit is the foundation for all significant life-events, and a much-overlooked detail in most social uprisings. Also, I really hate to miss an opportunity to overdress.
But then I heard a deep and somber narrator’s voice; it said – Victoria was unaware that a disturbing theme was about to emerge… bacon.
You need a range hood because:
Bacon smell.
Bacon grease.
Bacon smoke.
Bacon bacon bacon.
My fellow humans! WHY ARE YOU EATING BACON?
Did the bacon people fail to send out a memo alerting the public to their exciting news: Bacon has been classified as a Group 1 carcinogen… Group 1 is: “things we KNOW FOR SURE CAUSE CANCER.”
The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer has determined conclusively that consumption of meat is carcinogenic to humans.
Now, I know you’re saying– but Victoria! Bacon is everyone’s favorite carcinogen!
DUH!
And to that I say:
ARSENIC IS ALSO TOTALLY DELICIOUS!
And: gives your complexion an indescribably brilliancy!
WOWZA!
SAFE Arsenic Complexion Wafers! (they are SAFE! it says so right there!)
Arsenic could totally make a comeback!
The Arsenic Industry just needs to band together! Create an Arsenic Counsel! Pool their resources to invest billions of dollars lobbying the USDA and the FDA!
Next, they should create a fun advertising campaign! With a catchy jingle! Featuring an attractive (but-not-distractingly-so!) “mom” in the kitchen, lovingly sprinkling arsenic on dinner!
Their slogan could be:
Arsenic! Small amounts won’t kill you!* *(probably)
Arsenic spokespersons could cite studies (funded by the Arsenic Institute) demonstrating that cancer, heart disease, diabetes, endocrine disruptions, etc… are all complex issues that humans do not truly understand!
And certainly our health is influenced by MANY factors other than eating bacon arsenic… So treat yourself!
Plus, you know that all of that advertising and lobbying is expensive; and the bacon Arsenic Institute needs to stay profitable! So they are depending on YOU!
Also, their CEO needs to make a couple billion dollars; his private jet is expensive! So don’t forget to feed it to your kids too!
Besides! It is OUR choice to consume carcinogens! And everyone knows that CHOICE is an essential element of our FREEDOM!
This is AMERICA!!
Don’t tread on me!
Live free or die!
NOBODY TELLS US WHAT TO DO!
I mean, except that one time we let big tobacco give us cancer… and oh, that time with the pharmaceutical industry’s wonder drug– thalidomide! And also that unfortunate period with the lobotomies.
Also, can we discuss taking away the socially-acceptable use of barbiturates for the treatment of hating vacuuming, but leaving us with bacon.
Who made THAT call? Can we get a re-vote?
I myself would really enjoy a daytime sedative!
But mostly, we can all totally relax and not worry that big corporations don’t care if we die/become addicts/get diabetes/cancer/heart disease!
I mean, would the tobacco,bacon, arsenic industry REALLY sell us a product they KNEW CAUSED CANCER? Of course not!
Vintage ads are hilarious because look how stupid humans were!
But is it less hilarious if we consider the possibility that nothing has changed? Is it possible that our health is OF NO CONSEQUENCE AT ALL to anyone who has a financial stake in our continued consumption of toxic products?
Is it possible that we must be smarter than we were 50 years ago, and NOT FEED OURSELVES CARCINOGENS… or let our children run behind the DDT truck… which my father remembers being a FOOLPROOF WAY TO AVOID MOSQUITOES!
for the record, DDT is definitely NOT good for anyone.
Does it matter that the only people benefiting from our consumption of toxins marketed as “food” are making billions of dollars?
The meat industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the medical industry, and the thousand-fold-increase of massively-profitable businesses that treat diet-related illness; their profit DEPENDS on humans making choices that are in direct opposition to good health.
sprinkle your home with asbestos! the perfect holiday decoration!
Which leads us down the road to OUR per-capita tax burden: it’s huge.
Does it matter that the way we subsidize “cheap” food is actually insanely expensive when you factor in the subsidies we pay via tax dollars?
An enormous cost to me and you, that benefits no one other than corporations! We pay our taxes, and corporate lobbyists make sure those taxes are spent in a way that MOST benefits their corporation’s interest.
For every dollar spent on lobbying by all public-interest groups combined, large corporations spend $34. –How Corporate Lobbyists Conquered American Democracy: The Business of America is Lobbying
slim WHILE you do housework! #goals!
Plus! On top of the cost of subsidizing toxic food, there is also the cost of the health-consequences suffered by the segments of our population who MOST rely on this crappy food… their medical care is ALSO our tax burden!
The United States spends significantly more on health care than any other nation… more than twice the average of 29 other developed countries. Yet the average life expectancy in the United States is far below many other nations that spend less on health care each year. — CDC.gov
Who benefits from all this spending and subsidizing? Not me! Probably not you either.
But we do pay the COST: families experiencing cancer, heart disease, diabetes… heartbreak, desperation… frequently experiencing financial drain from expensive treatment, on top of the emotional gutting.
Can we reduce this emotional-cost by considering that the World Health Organization has found that 30% of cancer in America is caused by WHAT WE EAT… whoa!
Stop and think about that for a second!
That 30% is JUST cancer… if we also consider that heart disease, diabetes, endocrine disruptions, etc. are ALSO linked to what we eat, could we further divide that cost to families suffering illness, loss, and financial issues?
The words below are from the National Institutes of Health: OUR GOVERNMENT… not an organization run by woo-woo treehuggers like myself.
Cancer is a preventable disease that requires major lifestyle changes.
Only 5–10% of all cancer cases can be attributed to genetic defects, whereas the remaining 90–95% have their roots in the environment and lifestyle.
—National Institutes of Health
lead = PARTY!
Everytime we put food in our mouth, we are voting for the kind of world we want, and how we want our families to experience that world.
Do we want a world where bacon is considered “food” rather than “toxin” because the meat industry lobbies like crazy and the pharmaceutical industry dances a little jig when yet another person takes blood pressure medication/cholesterol medication/cancer medication?
In the U.S. alone, factory farming pollutes American waterways more than all other industries combined… Generating over 1.4 billion tons of animal waste annually. —National Institutes of Health
So essentially: human health and the environment future generations will inherit… are MOST IMPACTED BY HOW WE FEED OURSELVES.
BACON, THO!*
*next time you hear someone wax rhapsodic about bacon, you are listening to the dulcet tones of advertising at work! if YOU are the waxer, you are the ad man’s dream!
only lets the “tanning” rays through!
Anyway… if you’re starting to suspect I am not totally ALL ABOUT BACON, you are correct.
If we can avoid contributing to factors that cause our illness, WHY WOULDN’T WE? We think of these diseases as beginning in mid-life… or late-life… but they begin as children. These are not conditions that come out of nowhere!
My father has had a heart attack… his father died of colon cancer (according to the American Institute for Cancer Research,HALF of colorectal cancer can be PREVENTED.)
Both of my parents have lost a younger sibling to Pancreatic cancer, a horrific and deadly killer… Both siblings were in their 50’s… Both left behind wonderful families; spouses, children, brothers and sisters… families who were utterly gutted.
Might these things have happened anyway? Sure… I know this better than anyone! Dad’s mom lived to be 93; she had all her wits about her AND her sense of humor. And she still had the “dripping can” on her stove– you know, to save the bacon grease to fry with.
And everyone said– wow! 93!
But might she have lived another five years if she ate better?
Two years?
One?
One year is a lot, when you love someone.
I will love you EVEN MORE... if you share me with your friends.
Also in group 1- exhaust (stop driving or being near cars that are driving), all alcoholic beverages, paint. also in group 1: oral contraceptives, Estrogen therapy for post menopausal women, outdoor air pollution.
I’m all for not exposing oneself to anymore carcinogenic sunstances than we have to, but I rarely find anyone telling women not to use birth control or telling everyone to stop drinking. Far more alcohol and birth control is consumed in this country than bacon.
Victoria, I’m 65 and believe what we eat is killing us! My husband and I have changed our eating and are becoming vegetarians. Can you share some recipes or menus you use?? It’s really hard to find restaurants that serve healthy items. My daughter lives in Phoenix and they have lots of wonderful restaurants that serve vegetarian dishes.
I eat bacon…..in moderation. I really dont want to live to 100. Ninety-nine is fine with me. My recent bloodwork is the best it’s been in over 10 years.I’m holding out that it a few years it will be found that bacon is not going to kill you. Just like coffee was bad, and now its good, eggs were bad and now they’re not the cause of high cholesterol. I wear sunscreen and my seat belt. I’ve cut out as much salt and sugar as I can. You gotta pick your poison. I pick bacon.
It may be a shorter life but it sure is a tasty one 😉 I don’t eat very much meat but a few times a year I crave bacon & steak and couldn’t imagine giving it up. In the past 2 years alone they have linked Eggs to dementia & milk to fibromyalgia but then both were disproven and/or theories changed based on evidence of the test subjects.
Growing up in the midwest (a meat & potato lifestyle) I saw first hand how unhealthy such lifestyle is and made sure not to live that lifestyle. I honestly think that the link from bacon/meat to cancer (in these studies) comes from the likelyhood that most of the people who eat A LOT of processed and red meat also drink soda, eat junk food with fillers like high fructose corn syrup, etc….to link bacon with cigarettes is just ridiculous.
Snopes and Wired both did articles on this with the help of top oncologists and the consensus was basically: “The scientific evidence linking both processed meat and tobacco to certain types of cancer is strong. In that sense, both are carcinogens. But smoking increases your relative risk of lung cancer by 2,500 percent; eating two slices of bacon a day increases your relative risk for colorectal cancer by 18 percent. Given the frequency of colorectal cancer, that means your risk of getting colorectal cancer over your life goes from about 5 percent to 6 percent and, well, YBMMV. (Your bacon mileage may vary.) “If this is the level of risk you’re running your life on, then you don’t really have much to worry about,” says Alfred Neugut, an oncologist and cancer epidemiologist at Columbia.”
I noticed when reading the links that the Q&A says things like
– “Eating red meat has not yet been established as a cause of cancer…..”
_ “The cancer risk related to the consumption of red meat is more difficult to estimate because the evidence that red meat causes cancer is not as strong…”
– “The strongest, but still limited, evidence for an association with eating red meat is for colorectal cancer…”
I agree that eating a diet full of such things is unhealthy and is bound to lead to horrible consequences but I also believe that everything in moderation is best for our bodies.
Bacon is better when cooked in the oven! Place on a cookie sheet and bake in the oven. Straight pieces,no splattering grease, no mess, and tah dah…..great bacon! No need for hood! Problem solved!!!! Happy Holidays!
I find myself becoming more nd more resistant to those who want to tell me what and how to eat. I am not over weight, very healthy and enjoy life. I have a friend that has ruined our friendship by nonstop preaching about every bite of food I eat. She does this with all of the ladies in our group and one byone we have dropped her . The constant emails, newspaper articles is a turn off. Why would I listen to a doctor of unknown skill on television rather than take the word of my physican? For those of you that choose this path, that is great. But not everyone is interested in hearing about it. There is an abundance of information available, plus medical doctors have nutritional programs available. When you hammer someone, you are more than likely making them more resistant. And why do you think it is your business what other people chose to eat?
I was vegetarian/vegan for decades and guess what I got sick eating a diet of all organic home grown vegetables, fruits and some grains. I was eating kale before most of you were born! lol
Because of my being vegan I developed a bone disease and my bones break so easily that it happens when I cough hard. Yep! So painful I don’t have words.
I use to forge the way for all to convert as well. Until I developed a tumor the size of a small melon.
There are no sure fire ways to omit diseases. My aunt a vegan also suffered before her death from several illness. She was very very thin and jogged every single day for decades. My grandmother her sister ate any thing she wanted was just always active and was sick 30 days before dying with no suffering. They died at almost the same age!
I’m for you not against you I just know my body did not like being a vegan. ; ) I just had a meat free meal for dinner tonight, shhh.
I’ll skip the bacon PSA (because know your farmer and skip smoking the bacon) and talk instead about how my house smells when I’m roasting peppers over my gas flame and I FORGET to turn on my jet engine force range hood (BEST brand is yeah — the best). When I see the gunk that has been sucked into the filters I think how can anyone even question not having an excellent hood for their stove? That gunk would be on my walls, settle into my floor, countertops, rugs…Hoods are good. Now back to bacon. Two grandparents lived into late nineties & early 100s. Bacon eaters. But they didn’t drink or smoke. A good friend was a vegetarian all her life, never smoked, never overweight, only small wine consumption–cancer. Just saying.
Superiority is detrimental to health and followers and no one is entitled to anything other the pursuit of life. I used to enjoy your posts, but seriously you have lost touch with reality, Victoria. There’s more to life than saving kittens, being vegan, and chasing after odd household pieces. Here’s hoping you find purpose and meaning in your New Year.
Superiority is detrimental to health- also good manners. Free statement of an opinion,do you castigate the bloggers who express an affinity for purple carpets while you would not endure purple for a million in ca$h?
We humans once had to struggle mightily for something to eat and shelter from the storm and Beasts that had a hankering for eating us. Now we have food in abundance,produced in factory farms and huge ships that drag the Ocean and kill off the fish populations that once existed in almost endless abundance. Nothing lasts forever and I fear our smug complacency will one day snap back and bring us a grim reality of all that we have sown and all that we will reap. Too soon old-too late smart.
The best way to cook bacon is in the microwave.. Use a special ridged microwave platter and lots of paper towels to soak up the fat. It makes the Best bacon.
What if Grandma was right and the WHO is wrong? What do we do with the contradictory studies….
I’ve read that stress is the greatest killer, so I think I’m just going to chill on this topic and see where the next 40 years lead.
Live ling and prosper!
Lacto-ovo veg here, with a downdraft stove. If you saute onions and garlic, or cook curry, you need some sort of vent. Those things smell great when they’re cooking, not so much at 2:00 am. Blech.
December 20, 2017 @ 12:15 pm
Also in group 1- exhaust (stop driving or being near cars that are driving), all alcoholic beverages, paint. also in group 1: oral contraceptives, Estrogen therapy for post menopausal women, outdoor air pollution.
I’m all for not exposing oneself to anymore carcinogenic sunstances than we have to, but I rarely find anyone telling women not to use birth control or telling everyone to stop drinking. Far more alcohol and birth control is consumed in this country than bacon.
December 20, 2017 @ 12:45 pm
Victoria, I’m 65 and believe what we eat is killing us! My husband and I have changed our eating and are becoming vegetarians. Can you share some recipes or menus you use?? It’s really hard to find restaurants that serve healthy items. My daughter lives in Phoenix and they have lots of wonderful restaurants that serve vegetarian dishes.
December 20, 2017 @ 12:52 pm
But what if we cook it in the oven…sprinkled with brown sugar? That can’t be bad right? Plus we don’t need the exhaust fan dealiebob.
Hugs, Di
December 20, 2017 @ 10:12 pm
and add maple syrup and black pepper, and a smidge of cayenne. That’ the way I want to go.
December 20, 2017 @ 7:29 pm
I have copied & saved this, plus posted it to Facebook. This is the best damn argument I have seen. You rock.
December 20, 2017 @ 10:11 pm
I eat bacon…..in moderation. I really dont want to live to 100. Ninety-nine is fine with me. My recent bloodwork is the best it’s been in over 10 years.I’m holding out that it a few years it will be found that bacon is not going to kill you. Just like coffee was bad, and now its good, eggs were bad and now they’re not the cause of high cholesterol. I wear sunscreen and my seat belt. I’ve cut out as much salt and sugar as I can. You gotta pick your poison. I pick bacon.
December 20, 2017 @ 11:25 pm
It may be a shorter life but it sure is a tasty one 😉 I don’t eat very much meat but a few times a year I crave bacon & steak and couldn’t imagine giving it up. In the past 2 years alone they have linked Eggs to dementia & milk to fibromyalgia but then both were disproven and/or theories changed based on evidence of the test subjects.
Growing up in the midwest (a meat & potato lifestyle) I saw first hand how unhealthy such lifestyle is and made sure not to live that lifestyle. I honestly think that the link from bacon/meat to cancer (in these studies) comes from the likelyhood that most of the people who eat A LOT of processed and red meat also drink soda, eat junk food with fillers like high fructose corn syrup, etc….to link bacon with cigarettes is just ridiculous.
Snopes and Wired both did articles on this with the help of top oncologists and the consensus was basically: “The scientific evidence linking both processed meat and tobacco to certain types of cancer is strong. In that sense, both are carcinogens. But smoking increases your relative risk of lung cancer by 2,500 percent; eating two slices of bacon a day increases your relative risk for colorectal cancer by 18 percent. Given the frequency of colorectal cancer, that means your risk of getting colorectal cancer over your life goes from about 5 percent to 6 percent and, well, YBMMV. (Your bacon mileage may vary.) “If this is the level of risk you’re running your life on, then you don’t really have much to worry about,” says Alfred Neugut, an oncologist and cancer epidemiologist at Columbia.”
I noticed when reading the links that the Q&A says things like
– “Eating red meat has not yet been established as a cause of cancer…..”
_ “The cancer risk related to the consumption of red meat is more difficult to estimate because the evidence that red meat causes cancer is not as strong…”
– “The strongest, but still limited, evidence for an association with eating red meat is for colorectal cancer…”
I agree that eating a diet full of such things is unhealthy and is bound to lead to horrible consequences but I also believe that everything in moderation is best for our bodies.
December 20, 2017 @ 11:44 pm
Bacon is better when cooked in the oven! Place on a cookie sheet and bake in the oven. Straight pieces,no splattering grease, no mess, and tah dah…..great bacon! No need for hood! Problem solved!!!! Happy Holidays!
December 20, 2017 @ 11:51 pm
Whew…that was a long rant! But I did read it.
Bacon was around a long time before the food industry, by the way.
December 22, 2017 @ 2:16 am
I find myself becoming more nd more resistant to those who want to tell me what and how to eat. I am not over weight, very healthy and enjoy life. I have a friend that has ruined our friendship by nonstop preaching about every bite of food I eat. She does this with all of the ladies in our group and one byone we have dropped her . The constant emails, newspaper articles is a turn off. Why would I listen to a doctor of unknown skill on television rather than take the word of my physican? For those of you that choose this path, that is great. But not everyone is interested in hearing about it. There is an abundance of information available, plus medical doctors have nutritional programs available. When you hammer someone, you are more than likely making them more resistant. And why do you think it is your business what other people chose to eat?
December 26, 2017 @ 11:19 pm
I was vegetarian/vegan for decades and guess what I got sick eating a diet of all organic home grown vegetables, fruits and some grains. I was eating kale before most of you were born! lol
Because of my being vegan I developed a bone disease and my bones break so easily that it happens when I cough hard. Yep! So painful I don’t have words.
I use to forge the way for all to convert as well. Until I developed a tumor the size of a small melon.
There are no sure fire ways to omit diseases. My aunt a vegan also suffered before her death from several illness. She was very very thin and jogged every single day for decades. My grandmother her sister ate any thing she wanted was just always active and was sick 30 days before dying with no suffering. They died at almost the same age!
I’m for you not against you I just know my body did not like being a vegan. ; ) I just had a meat free meal for dinner tonight, shhh.
December 27, 2017 @ 5:10 pm
I’ll skip the bacon PSA (because know your farmer and skip smoking the bacon) and talk instead about how my house smells when I’m roasting peppers over my gas flame and I FORGET to turn on my jet engine force range hood (BEST brand is yeah — the best). When I see the gunk that has been sucked into the filters I think how can anyone even question not having an excellent hood for their stove? That gunk would be on my walls, settle into my floor, countertops, rugs…Hoods are good. Now back to bacon. Two grandparents lived into late nineties & early 100s. Bacon eaters. But they didn’t drink or smoke. A good friend was a vegetarian all her life, never smoked, never overweight, only small wine consumption–cancer. Just saying.
December 30, 2017 @ 5:00 pm
Superiority is detrimental to health and followers and no one is entitled to anything other the pursuit of life. I used to enjoy your posts, but seriously you have lost touch with reality, Victoria. There’s more to life than saving kittens, being vegan, and chasing after odd household pieces. Here’s hoping you find purpose and meaning in your New Year.
January 8, 2018 @ 7:22 pm
Superiority is detrimental to health- also good manners. Free statement of an opinion,do you castigate the bloggers who express an affinity for purple carpets while you would not endure purple for a million in ca$h?
We humans once had to struggle mightily for something to eat and shelter from the storm and Beasts that had a hankering for eating us. Now we have food in abundance,produced in factory farms and huge ships that drag the Ocean and kill off the fish populations that once existed in almost endless abundance. Nothing lasts forever and I fear our smug complacency will one day snap back and bring us a grim reality of all that we have sown and all that we will reap. Too soon old-too late smart.
January 3, 2018 @ 2:54 pm
The best way to cook bacon is in the microwave.. Use a special ridged microwave platter and lots of paper towels to soak up the fat. It makes the Best bacon.
January 4, 2018 @ 7:54 am
What if Grandma was right and the WHO is wrong? What do we do with the contradictory studies….
I’ve read that stress is the greatest killer, so I think I’m just going to chill on this topic and see where the next 40 years lead.
Live ling and prosper!
January 8, 2018 @ 9:06 pm
Lacto-ovo veg here, with a downdraft stove. If you saute onions and garlic, or cook curry, you need some sort of vent. Those things smell great when they’re cooking, not so much at 2:00 am. Blech.