Being a Bulletproof® Executive and all, I’m not one to read “Ladies Home Journal,”or “Men’s Journal” for that matter, where one can see all sorts of strangely groomed and waxed men primping with their expensive watches. I’m more of a Scientific American Mind kind of guy.
One morning, at the Hyatt Hotel in Denver, I sat down to a healthy, high-fat breakfast of poached eggs and avocado. I selected these goods to fuel my brain before I went on stage in front of a few hundred people. There, I spied a copy of Men’s Journal on a nearby table that was opened up to what can only be called a bacon centerfold containing glorious pictures of naked, gourmet bacon from some of the top bacon pimps in the country.
It’s a great review. If you want to pick up some awesome bacon, this is a good place to start, but don’t forget Applegate Farms bacon, available at Whole Foods. They were kind enough to reply to one of my earlier posts on bacon.
I wrote that real men (and women) cure their own bacon. By that definition, I’m not a real man, but I plan to be one soon, thanks to this piece from Lifehacker.
The human body runs best on high-octane fuel, and the highest-octane food we have contains plenty of fat (refer to the Bulletproof Food section for a detailed explanation). It also explains why I eat moderate amounts of bacon, yet have HDL (good) cholesterol levels of 86, which is higher than is theoretically possible for males on normal blood work charts.
Unburned bacon, from healthy animals, will NOT raise your cholesterol, or harm you in other ways. If you burn it, however, you will create nitrosamines that are a corollary cause of cancer and migraines. Overcooked bacon is also a dietary source of harmful, denatured protein. Here’s the research to back that up.
Being a biohacker, I know that if you sprinkle even a small amount of an antioxidant (like vitamin C powder) on your bacon before you cook it, you block the formation of nitrosamines and small amounts won’t change the flavor. The bacon in this picture is slightly blackened around the edges, which can mean that the bacon artist who made this used too much dextrose (sugars brown easily) or that the bacon is slightly burned. Scared of nitrates or nitrite preservatives? Vegetables like lettuce contain far more, on average, than bacon!
Only a bite of this juicy piece of bacon will satisfy my lust…for knowledge of course. I must have some! 🙂
These high-end, bacon centerfold celebreties are beautiful and shapely, but I don’t think they can keep up with Jim, a bacon hacker who smokes the best bacon only 2 miles from my house. It is with much regret that I will have to try them all to make sure. To pursue the perfect bulletproof bacon, I will pair each sampling with my quest to brew the perfect cup of butter-enriched Bulletproof® coffee. (Seriously. I have a 6 pack and haven’t worked out in far too long…this is awesome!)
Direct links to the lovely bacon:
Applegate Farms
surryfarms.com
vanderosefarms.com
smokehouse.com
lobels.com
ncsmokehouse.com
blackpigmeatco.com
nodinessmokehouse.com
Special thanks to Herb Kim, founder of the Thinking Digital Conference, who recently coined the term “Bacon IQ.” He’s also the guy who came up with the name “Bulletproof® Executive” several years ago on a flight from SFO to Heathrow as we sat across from each other in the Virgin Atlantic Upper Class section.
