It is fair to characterize our society as one that hides our passionate love affair for bacon really rather poorly. We acknowledge that bacon is a salty, fatty big product with so little nutritional value, but we also are a society that has made, among other things, bacon salt. Clearly, we have an obsession.
Eliza Barclay of National Public Radio reported this past weekend about the status of bacon as a “gateway meat” for vegetarians. According the Barclay, it is not uncommon for long-time vegetarians to cheat with meat if only for a few strips of the most forbidden of desires- bacon.
Johan Landstrum, of the Monell Chemical Senses Center, studies how the brain processes sensory information, and he’s all too familiar with the situation Barclay reported on.  Evidently, a former girlfriend of Landstrum’s ceased being vegetarian after falling victim to insidious bacon.
 “Because bacon is high in fat and protein,” Landstrum explained, “it appeals to an evolutionary desire for calories; and,” he added, “since a vast majority of taste is influenced by odor, bacon’s distinctly alluring scent has the ability to even make enemies of meat mouths water. There is an intimate connection between odor and taste, and odor and memory,” explains Lindstrum. Because of this relationship, the smell of a food (for instance, bacon) can provide a powerful idea for what a food will taste like, and a powerful emotional association for that food.
“Bacon is in the perfect position to take advantage of how the brain is wired.”
Perhaps it is this power that makes bacon so pervasive in our culture. Think Geek is a webstore that has an entire category devoted to bacon, over thirty items. And they aren’t just thirty different types of pre-packaged pork. The website carries bacon jellybeans, bacon mints, bacon candles (that sizzle!) Mr. Bacon’s Big Adventure (a Candyland variant based on bacon) and a hand-made bacon-print scarf to name a few.
Possibly the most offbeat item in the bacon store of Think Geek is “My First Bacon,” a large plush creation that says, “I’m Bacon” when hugged. The description of this oddity says “Teach your children to love bacon, not pigs.”
 The internet clearly loves bacon, going well beyond Think Geek’s strange selection. The bacon news resource, BaconToday.com, has an article about Bacon-related Valentines gifts. This love goes deep into the collective hearts of web-surfers placing it in a strange place above other meats, and this, Lindstrum suggests, might be another factor in the fact that vegetarians are willing to steal a strip and compromise some core beliefs for a taste of the bacon.
Donna Maurer, author of Vegetarianism: Moment or Movement, argues that the social significance of bacon is extremely important, and that the innovative uses for bacon, like those Think Geek offers (Gummi Bacon, for instance) or homemade delights, like chocolate-covered bacon, and the social significance of eating these with friends, might well erode the will of vegetarians over time.
Hope for a vegetarian is not lost, however. Some people remain vigilant in the face of strips of meat sizzling on a stove. February of last year, Jonathan Safran Foer, author of the vegetarian treatise Eating Animals, sat down to talk meat with Stephen Colbert on his popular quasi-news program The Colbert Report. Despite his best efforts, the host was not able to goad Foer into eating bacon, the most tempting of the meats.
The long and short of it is this; vegetarians are in grave danger from bacon. The evolutionary reactions we have to the promise of a sizzling skillet in conjunction with a culture that obsesses over it may become more than they can withstand. But the task is not insurmountable. As Nancy Regan once said, “Just say no.” You’ll do fine, vegetarians, and I wish you luck.
As for myself, I find the words of Comedy Central Insider blogger Matt Tobey speak to me rather profoundly: I’m completely incapable of resisting the demands of clowns and women named Wendy.