Americans reportedly eat, on average, more than 18 pounds of bacon each year. This unhealthy obsession with bacon apparently began in the 1990s when the high-protein, high-fat, low-carb Atkins Diet started gaining popularity. Now there are tons of bacon-inspired products available to the bacon lover, such as bacon ice cream, chocolate-dipped bacon, bacon doughnuts, bacon candy, bacon soap, bacon toothpaste, and bacon air freshener. Here are a few more examples.

• Next time you make yourself a drink, why not make a "Bacon Sour"? All you need is St-Germain Liqueur infused with applewood smoked bacon, Basil Hayden's Bourbon, lemon juice, maple syrup, Peychaud's Bitters, and some egg white. [url]
• You can be a real bacon lover with J&D's Baconlube, a bacon-flavored personal lubricant and massage oil. Apparently, Baconlube began as an elaborate April Fool's joke, but when J&D's revealed that it was never intended to be a real product, bacon lovers everywhere protested. So now, for a limited time, you can buy an actual bottle of Baconlube. [url]
• On April 1st (wink), Scope announced that it was introducing an entirely vegetarian (i.e. "synthetic") bacon-flavored mouthwash. Too bad it's not real because this idea has potential. Imagine, usually nasty-tasting mouthwash now tastes like bacon, and vegetarians could get a 30-second bacon fix without actually having to eat a pig. [url]

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The Library of Congress names Louis' Lunch sandwich shop as the inventor of the hamburger, but there are various disputes over who exactly cooked the first hamburger (and named it after people from Germany). In any case, the hamburger has undergone quite a few changes since the early 1900s. Here are a couple unhealthy examples of extreme burgers, and a reminder that being overweight doesn't necessarily kill you (but it's not considered healthy).

• The 'Merica burger is made of ground bacon topped with more bacon and bacon cheddar cheese, along with a fried egg and bacon island dressing. Thankfully, this burger creation was available for only a limited time. [url]
• If customers were allowed to create their own burger combinations, would people really choose to put a greasy cheeseburger between two glazed donuts? The answer is apparently, yes, and they'd add bacon as well. [url]
• What are the ramifications of being overweight? According to a meta-study of 97 prior studies that categorized 2.9 million people by a Body Mass Index, people classified as overweight (BMI >30) had a 6% lower chance of dying than people of average BMI. The conclusion should be that BMI is not a perfect metric for health, but the alternative metrics may have a hard time becoming as widely adopted. [url]

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Bacon is one of the most universally enjoyed foods... it's been called the "gateway meat" for vegetarians (and it's created quite a few ex-vegetarians). If you can't resist bacon, then you'll probably enjoy these links, too.

• Smucker's has a Maple Bacon-flavored syrup to make breakfast even more bacon-y. It contains neither bacon nor maple syrup. Discuss. [url]
• Can bacon help you during the zombie apocalypse? Maybe not, but it's still delicious. [url]
• Need another excuse to love bacon? As a bacon sandwich, it's a hangover cure. Who funds this kind of research... the alcohol industry or the pork lobby? [url]
• If you want to prepare for the worldwide shortages of bacon next year, start slowly weaning yourself off the crispy-fatty goodness now. Just focus on bacon's association with increased risk of heart disease and cancer while you experiment with Tempeh or Seitan recipes. [url]

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The USA has no monopoly on hamburger innovations. Sure, Americans probably eat more burgers than any other country, and we came up with the drive-thru and drive-in processes for burger orders. But the possibilities for burgers have no limits, and here are just a few global developments in the world of burger technology.

• In Germany, McDonald's crowdsourced a few new menu suggestions which were released as actual products for sale over the month of May. The "Pretzelnator" was the first item -- offering folks a ham & cheese sandwich on a pretzel-like bun. [url]
• In Japan, the phrase "have it your way" translates to "put as much bacon as humanly possible on my Whopper, please." Japanese Burger Kings will put 15 slices of bacon on your burger for about 100 yen, and for about 7,000 yen, that's 1,050 slices of bacon on your order. [url]
• Pizza Hut in Dubai has added cute little cheeseburgers to pizza crust. They've also added mini chicken fillets on pizza crusts and cream cheese, too. [url]
• To discover more food-related links, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon. [url]  

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Bacon is an almost universally-loved food item -- it's salty and fatty and meaty all at the same time. So it's not too surprising that people will try to add bacon to almost any dish. Everything is better with bacon... and here are some examples that test that assertion.

• The makers of Baconnaise and Bacon Baby Formula have created a bacon-themed coffin for sale. For about $3,000 plus shipping, you too, could be preserved in a casket that looks like bacon. [url]
• Bacon-scented hand sanitizer is a great way to pickup stray dogs. Or to get your hand bitten... [url]
• Burger King has introduced a bacon sundae to its menu. It's not available at every location yet -- only a few hip places around Nashville, Tennessee. [url]
• Jack in the Box has a bacon milkshake that packs 773 calories into 16 ounces of bacon-flavored refreshment. No actual bacon was harmed to create this milkshake, just bacon-flavored syrup. [url]
• To discover more food-related links, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon. [url]  

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Pork is one of the most commonly consumed meats worldwide. Interestingly, even though it was marketed as the "other white meat" (that slogan was retired in 2011), the USDA always referred to pork as a "red meat" on its website. Here are just a few more fascinating tidbits on pig products.

• A severe nosebleed (caused by a rare blood disorder that prevents normal blood clotting) can be stopped with a rolled up piece of salt cured pork. This salt pork remedy has actually been around for several decades -- but it doesn't work with bacon, so don't grab just any slice of deli meat. [url]
• Bacon-flavored toothpaste is available for folks who like to brush their teeth as an appetizer for breakfast. Don't swallow this stuff or use as a condiment. [url]
• The use of lard isn't too common in cooking anymore -- but who's to blame for that? Pig fat just doesn't sound as appetizing as hydrogenated vegetable oils... does it? hmm. [url]
• To discover more food-related links, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon. [url]  

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The popularity of food stories has moved well beyond just the occasional cooking show. There are all sorts of competitive cooking shows, restaurant reality shows, and attempts to create new food revolutions via TV shows and documentaries. Since everyone seems to like to learn about what they're eating, here are a few more interesting food articles to chew on.

• Tilapia is apparently the perfect factory fish -- but its story got bumped off the front page of the NYT due to a little bit of Osama bin Laden news. So on an otherwise slow news day, we would have learned that tilapia may not be as healthy for people as other fish and it's considered an invasive species due to its ability to outgrow other fish populations. [url]
• Baby carrots are going to be the next junk food -- if you believe the marketing hype. Celery sticks don't stand a chance against these little orange guys... [url]
• Everyone loves bacon -- even vegetarians. It's fried, salty and has plenty of fat, so what's not to like? [url]
• To discover more food-related links, check out what's cooking in the StumbleUpon kitchen. [url]  

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