this might very well be a story for

chuck loves pig meat but i'm posting it here instead.
(ah hell, i'll cross-post it)
there are many things i'm addicted to. MEAT IS NOT ONE OF THEM. i don't preach unless i'm back into a corner (or made fun of. then you actually better watch your back). i do have a concern for how we treat our animals. i think it ALL ties together. the nicer we are to our animals AND TO OURSELVES, the easier life on earth will be. yes, i really truly believe that. i tend to anthropomorphize when i'm dealing with animals. i KNOW that. even if i don't, i KNOW animals have feelings. they CAN AND DO feel at the VERY LEAST, pain. we have NO business inflicting pain upon them (or others of our own species).

anyway, this may be of interest to one and all (or none)
Gonzo Gastronomy: How the Food Industry Has Made Bacon a Weapon of Mass Destruction

By Arun Gupta, AlterNet

Among my fondest childhood memories is savoring a strip of perfectly cooked bacon that had just been dragged through a puddle of maple syrup. It was an illicit pleasure; varnishing the fatty, salty, smoky bacon with sweet arboreal sap felt taboo. How could such simple ingredients produce such riotous flavors?

That was then. Today, you don't need to tax yourself applying syrup to bacon -- McDonald's does it for you with the McGriddle. It conveniently takes an egg, American cheese and pork and nestles it between pancakelike biscuits suffused with genuine fake-maple-syrup flavor.

The McGriddle is just one moment in an era of extreme food combinations -- a moment in which bacon plays a starring role, from high cuisine to low.

There is: bacon ice cream; bacon-infused vodka; deep-fried bacon; chocolate-dipped bacon; bacon-wrapped hot dogs filled with cheese (which are fried, then battered and fried again); brioche bread pudding smothered in bacon sauce; hard-boiled eggs coated in mayonnaise encased in bacon -- called, appropriately, the "heart attack snack"; bacon salt; bacon doughnuts, cupcakes and cookies; bacon mints; "baconnaise," which Jon Stewart described as "for people who want to get heart disease but [are] too lazy to actually make bacon"; Wendy's "Baconnator" -- six strips of bacon mounded atop a half-pound cheeseburger -- which sold 25 million in its first eight weeks; and the outlandish bacon explosion -- a barbecued meat brick composed of 2 pounds of bacon wrapped around 2 pounds of sausage............