In a flash fiction I wrote in 2013 entitled The bacon at the end I echoed a recurrent dream from my youth in which I was condemned to choose between eating poisoned bacon and waiting for the world to end in five minutes due to a nuclear strike. I never could choose.
Now it would seem that almost all bacon, at least that which is made using nitrates and/or nitrites, has always been ‘poisonous’, with or without the world ending. In a Guardian article entitled Yes, bacon really is killing us by Bee Wilson, the whole appalling truth is laid bare. The health-devastating choices of a meat industry seeking to maximise their profits are evident. Those players have sought to cover-up the truth using moves lifted straight from the tobacco industry’s playbook.
Ironically – given my choice between deadly bacon and nuclear destruction – in the same edition of the Guardian, another article by Andrew Roth entitled Putin threatens US arms race with new missiles declaration brings the nuclear holocaust chillingly closer.