Bacon machine reason to go hog wild

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/12/2018 (2776 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s been months since I have received an angry letter or email from a vegetarian outraged over my unbridled passion for the world’s favourite breakfast food, by which I mean bacon.

This may sound odd but I kind of miss getting hate mail from people who complain my frequent pro-bacon rantings are the worst thing that has happened to Western civilization up to and including the advent of Donald Trump.

I will summarize a typical anti-bacon email as follows: “Dear Mr. Stupid Head: How (bad word) dare you write about (bad word) bacon so (bad word) often! You are a (bad word) stupid carnivorous jerk. I have eaten nothing but broccoli blah blah for the past 40 years blah blah and I have won 17 Nobel Prizes. Bacon will cause your (bad word) intestines to explode and it is also very bad for pigs, which, by the way, are way smarter than a (bad word) columnist such as yourself. I (bad word) hate you. Have a nice day.”

So in an effort to get everyone in a festive letter-writing mood, I decided today would be an excellent time to get caught up on the latest breaking news involving delicious strips of sizzling salted pork.

Let’s grab the bull by the horns and start by discussing the latest campaign from People for the Ethical Treatment for Animals (PETA), an outspoken organization that wants people like me to stop using slang phrases like “grab the bull by the horns.”

In a recent widely publicized tweet, PETA whipped up headlines around the world when it called on thoughtful humans to stop using “anti-animal language” and reject what it referred to as “speciesism.”

Instead of “bring home the bacon” — which is something I both do and say pretty much every day — PETA wants us to say “bring home the bagels.”

They tweeted a nifty chart listing offensive animal-related phrases next to suitable non-meaty replacements. In my view, PETA was trying to “take the bull by the horns,” but they would prefer I say “take the flower by the thorns.”

“Words matter, and as our understanding of social justice evolves, our language evolves along with it,” PETA tweeted earlier this month.

Look, I don’t wish to beat a dead horse — or in PETA talk, “feed a fed horse” — but I think this famously provocative animal-rights organization needs to hold its horses, so to speak.

Someone online has already accused the group, known for outrageous publicity stunts, of being a media hog, which of course is deeply offensive to hogs, if not persons in my profession.

I don’t want to open a can of worms, but what I’m trying to say is it really gets my goat when some group insists that instead of saying “kill two birds with one stone,” I am supposed to say “feed two birds with one scone.”

This is difficult for me to admit, but I think we need to address the elephant in the room because PETA is trying to get the lion’s share of media attention by letting the proverbial cat out of the bag in the sense they refuse to let sleeping dogs lie, which, and I hate to say this, is pretty pig-headed of them.

I understand they believe it is better to be ridiculed than ignored, but they have become a one-trick pony and… hold on… did I already say that gets my goat… OK, apparently I am running out of animal-related idioms so it is time for me to weasel out of this rant and share something else that is really going to make PETA mad as a hornet, which is an insect as opposed to an animal but that won’t matter to a group that wouldn’t hurt a fly.

Anyway, what I really wanted to tell you today is that one of the greatest inventions in the history of (I don’t know if it’s OK to say this) humankind has been unveiled at Ohio State University, by which I mean a bacon vending machine.

Yes, according to dozens of emails sent to me in the past few days, we are talking about a vending machine that spits out delicious strips of bacon instead of chocolate bars and potato chips and soda pop and other items that are even worse for your health.

The Ohio Pork Council sponsored the machine — with bacon donations from Smithfield, Hormel and Sugardale — and plopped it into the school’s college of food, agricultural and environmental sciences, with all the proceeds going to benefit their meat science program, whose members were responsible for the operation of this device.

For just $1, students were able to fill up on cooked bacon strips and bacon bits, something they did so frequently that news reports say the machine had to be restocked four or five times every day. “The bacon vending machine is a unique and fun way for the Ohio Pork Council to support Ohio State students and promote the pork industry at the same time,” Dave Shoup, the president-elect of the pork council, said in a statement.

I don’t want to bum out non-vegetarians before Christmas, but the sad news is the machine was only on campus from Dec. 4 until Dec. 13, which means students craving bacon-y goodness are now forced to bring home the bagels instead.

Not everyone is sad. “High cholesterol, heart attacks and premature death for everyone!” one critic snorted online.

Personally, I would like to tell all those students in Ohio how sad I am for their loss, because, when it comes to bacon, no one should have to quit cold turkey.

My apologies to PETA, but you just can’t teach an old meat eater new tricks.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca