If I'm going to spend a year eating as few carbohydrates as possible, there's only one food that can carry me to the finish line: bacon.
I started the day with my typical low-carb breakfast: bacon and (using the leftover grease) fried eggs. From my previous experience with low-carb, I know that at some point I'll get tired of eggs. Change it up however I want (fried, scrambled with cheese, boiled), I'll still get tired after a month or two. We'll cross that bridge when we get there; with eggs it's a known problem.
But not bacon. I think I've enjoyed it all my life but I know the exact moment when I first loved it and needed it. I was living in Raleigh and out late one night playing trivia, probably drinking. I had eaten a BLT (or some kind of club sandwich) for dinner and was struck by the bacon so much that I asked the waitress for a plate of bacon. Just bacon. And this wasn't a diner or Waffle House where that kind of order is common. It was a restaurant/bar that likely only served bacon with other things: salads, burgers, sandwiches. I told the waitress Just bacon, pick the price. She brought me a heaping plate of bacon and I ate through it, like chips and salsa. It was perfect and I've been hooked since. Bacon-flavored chocolate, bacon in pancakes, it's all good by me.
Not only does bacon taste great, it plays a critical role in low-carb diets too. One of the least talked-about disadvantages to cutting out carbs is that it tends to cut out foods which crunch. Chips, toast, crackers, croutons, pretzels -- all the things that snap when you bite them are off limits. The exceptions are few: celery, some nuts (in moderation) and bacon (or its crazy cousin, pork rinds). So, bacon satisfies the textural problem while also being mostly fat and protein. And let's not forget the salt too. At some point on a low-carb diet you're just not going to want to eat another vegetable or egg or slice of turkey -- they're all sort of boring. So you salt the egg, start dipping the veggies in ranch dressing or you look for something that excites your taste buds. Bacon does this.
I've also noticed over the past ten years that eating bacon doesn't upset me as much now as it did before I lowered my carb intake. Back then, eating bacon or something high in fat would have given me heartburn or acid reflux. Sausage was especially disastrous. Now I eat these things and they give me no problems at all.
This should come as no surprise knowing what I know now. Fat is essentially neutral as it goes through your body, stimulating neither insulin or its counterpart, glucagon. However, Americans typically eat a diet high in fat and carbohydrates. From Protein Power (Eades and Eades), page 39:
But not bacon. I think I've enjoyed it all my life but I know the exact moment when I first loved it and needed it. I was living in Raleigh and out late one night playing trivia, probably drinking. I had eaten a BLT (or some kind of club sandwich) for dinner and was struck by the bacon so much that I asked the waitress for a plate of bacon. Just bacon. And this wasn't a diner or Waffle House where that kind of order is common. It was a restaurant/bar that likely only served bacon with other things: salads, burgers, sandwiches. I told the waitress Just bacon, pick the price. She brought me a heaping plate of bacon and I ate through it, like chips and salsa. It was perfect and I've been hooked since. Bacon-flavored chocolate, bacon in pancakes, it's all good by me.
Not only does bacon taste great, it plays a critical role in low-carb diets too. One of the least talked-about disadvantages to cutting out carbs is that it tends to cut out foods which crunch. Chips, toast, crackers, croutons, pretzels -- all the things that snap when you bite them are off limits. The exceptions are few: celery, some nuts (in moderation) and bacon (or its crazy cousin, pork rinds). So, bacon satisfies the textural problem while also being mostly fat and protein. And let's not forget the salt too. At some point on a low-carb diet you're just not going to want to eat another vegetable or egg or slice of turkey -- they're all sort of boring. So you salt the egg, start dipping the veggies in ranch dressing or you look for something that excites your taste buds. Bacon does this.
I've also noticed over the past ten years that eating bacon doesn't upset me as much now as it did before I lowered my carb intake. Back then, eating bacon or something high in fat would have given me heartburn or acid reflux. Sausage was especially disastrous. Now I eat these things and they give me no problems at all.
This should come as no surprise knowing what I know now. Fat is essentially neutral as it goes through your body, stimulating neither insulin or its counterpart, glucagon. However, Americans typically eat a diet high in fat and carbohydrates. From Protein Power (Eades and Eades), page 39:
Although fat is the raw material the body uses to make cholesterol, insulin runs the cellular machinery that actually makes it. If you reduce the level of insulin, the cells can't convert the fat to cholesterol, almost no matter how much fat is available.And what turns on insulin? Carbohydrates. I can't help but wonder (as others have as well) if the lack of carbohydrates in my diet not only reduces the storage of the fat but also reduces the reflux of gastric acid. We'll put a pin in it and come back later if we see heartburn show up this year. In the meantime, Jim Gaffigan and his ode to bacon. EUREKA!
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