Any Excuse to Eat Bacon

This morning the house still smelled like bacon. A two-for-one deal at the supermarket made brunch abound with bacon Sunday morning. Mmmmm…bacon. The deliciously fatty pork product is the reason that we couldn’t keep up a vegetarian diet or have we ever thought of becoming kosher. Today we’re hearing reports all over the place that bacon may be healthy for the first time since the Atkins Diet fell out of favor. omega-3 fatty acids have found their way into pigs.

Omega-3 fatty acids didn’t actually find their way into pigs, rather they were spliced into the DNA of pig eggs, from the lot 10 male pigs were born 60% of them having the gene which produces the healthy omega-3 fatty acids. Bostonist often wonders what’s going on in all the labs we walk past from Fenway to Brigham Circle and that whole Longwood Medical area. It may be safe to assume that they’re not actually raising pigs there, but Dr. Jing Kang of Harvard Medical School worked with a team that included other Harvard faculty and members from the University of Missouri, and the University of Pittsburgh.

Before we get all giddy about eating healthier bacon and snacking on some Redbones pulled pork that might actually lower our cholesterol it’s important to remember two things: while researchers have proven that omega-3 fatty acids are present, they haven't shown there are actually health benefits to the new pork, and secondly no one has sampled the new pigs – they don’t smell fishy but they might not taste like pork. The whole genetically modified organism (GMO) thing, or frankenfood if you prefer, still makes Bostonist a little weary. Incidentally the term “frankenfood” appears to have been coined by local English prof. Paul Lewis of Boston College.