3 Things You Didn’t Know About Bacon

Ah, bacon. How we love thee. Here are 3 facts you didn’t know about the king of breakfast foods.

1. People Just Love the Taste and Smell

Bacon flavouring is added to lots of products, even strange ones like bacon flavour lip balm or candied bacon, right through to downright bizarre ones like bacon scented underwear and pillowcases…

There was even a combi toaster and alarm clock called the Wake ‘n Bacon. It promised to wake us up with fresh cooked bacon, but sadly it never made it past the prototype stage.

Why do people love bacon so much? It turns out that bacon contains two things that enhance the flavour of almost anything – salt and fat. Bacon is also chewy and crunchy, and gives our flavour receptors a hit of what they crave.

2. It’s Britain’s Favourite Snack

In a recent poll, the good old bacon sandwich was voted Britain’s most popular snack. It beat cheese on toast and sausage rolls to the top spot. Loaded onto white bread and smothered in red or brown sauce it tastes amazing. Apparently sauce preference has a north/south divide – southerners prefer red sauce, while northerners prefer brown on their bacon butty.

3. Bacon Fat Was Used to Make Explosives in World War II

During the war, American households were encouraged to donate their leftover bacon grease to the war effort. Rendered fats were used to create glycerin, which went into making bombs, gunpowder and other munitions. There was even a promotional film starring Pluto and Minnie Mouse that gave a stern lecture to housewives of the time for throwing out more than 2 billion pounds of grease every year!