Bacon!

December 2nd, 2012| Topic: RaMbLeS | 2

Candied bacon martini, chocolate-covered bacon (on a stick), oysters wrapped in bacon, bacon sundae, maple bacon doughnut. There is the “bacone” (a bacon cone with scrambled eggs, hash browns, and cheese), there is chicken-fried bacon (here in good ol’ Texas), there is a peanut butter-bacon-banana sandwich, bacon-infused vodka, hard-boiled eggs coated in mayonnaise shrouded in bacon, bacon mints, and every other conceivable form of bacon mania. Someone announced recently the invention of a bacon alarm clock that can wake you up with the smell of fried bacon!

And just when you thought there couldn’t been anything new on the bacon front, this week you’d be surprised. Ladies and gentlemen (I bet it is unisex), heeeeeere’s Bacon Shaving Cream.

Only $14.99.

J&D Foods suggests that their Bacon Shaving Cream is “best used after a hot shower or before an important date with someone you may want to spend the rest of your life with.”

“You’re going to feel good, you’re going to smell good and you’re probably going to taste good,” J&D’s Dave Lefkow declares. “This is something that every bacon-loving American male needs.”

Yup, that’s all we macho guys need.

For those of you testosterone-drenched beings who are rushing out to get their own can of aforementioned J&D product, move fast. Bacon Shaving Cream is being produced in a limited run of 2,500. (No, I haven’t got myself some.)

To be fair, J&D “bacontrepreneurs” do provide a warning to those enterprising souls willing to yield $14.99 to smell and taste like bacon: “Prepare to be loved, admired and possibly be eaten by bears.”

Nice!

Even tasty things have their dangers. Slather bacon on your face, and you’re liable to be a snack for bears. Not to mention the other dangers that bacon poses, like, for instance, cranking up the cholesterol numbers. Even good things come with warnings.

On the other hand, I’ve often wondered: Why is it that all (seemingly) good things are dangerous?

Like … bacon, cheese, butter.

Or … sin.

They’re all addictive! Apparently bacon has six ingredient types of umami (one of the five basic tastes, from the Japanase for “pleasant savory”) that stimulate the glutamate receptors on the tongue, and thereby elicit an addictive neurochemical response. According to one investigator “the chain lards on bacon” give foods a “high flavor profile” creating a “one-of-a-kind product that has no taste substitute.” According to Dr. David Kessler, author of The End of Overeating, there is a standard joke in the restaurant chain industry that goes: “When in doubt, throw cheese and bacon on it.”

Yup, bacon is addictive.

And so is sin. Here’s Jesus:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.”
John 8:34

Enslaved!

Do you not know that when you present yourselves
to someone as slaves for obedience,
you are slaves of the one whom you obey,
either of sin resulting in death,
or of obedience resulting in righteousness?
Romans 6:16

But there is freedom available.

“If the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”
John 8:36

Emancipated!

But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin,
you became obedient from the heart
to that form of teaching to which you were committed,
and having been freed from sin,
you became slaves of righteousness.
Romans 6:17–18

And this slavery, to righteousness, gives a greater high than any addiction, an eternal high, a divine high, a heavenly high. Literally!

But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God,
you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification,
and the outcome, eternal life.
Romans 6:22

Amen!