If you are tiring of bacon, there's a reason. A new survey from market researcher Mintel shows that, compared to how much it was showing up in quick-serve menu offerings in 2005, bacon is now found in 26.5 percent more items.
And as BurgerBusiness.com discovered, it's the burger that opened the door for bacon to take over:
Mintel finds that the number of bacon-topped burgers at all 580 restaurants in its Menu Insights database soared from 424 in 2005 to 576 in 2009, a 35.8% increase.In other words, nearly every restaurant feels compelled to have a bacon-topped burger these days.
Bacon is one of the rare meats that adds some excitement to what's coming through the drive-thru window. But despite the overused axiom that bacon improves everything, the truth is that not all bacon burgers are created equally. And a disappointing bacon burger is in some ways worse than a bad cheeseburger.
Limp bacon that doesn't resemble the meat in the commercials inspires the kind of rage traditionally associated with the Hulk. If anything, we should be licensing who is allowed to introduce a new bacon burger.
Taste debates aside, BurgerBusiness.com makes a telling point: that with great bacon comes great sodium. And because salt and sugar are currently vying for the title of next food devil, the soaring rise of bacon could be due for a reversal next year:
If, as many suspect, sodium sensitivity is the 800-lb.-gorilla food trend for 2010 that the foodservice industry doesn't want to acknowledge, the bacon addiction could keep restaurants on the hot seat.[Image via Flickr: twon]
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Why is bacon treated like a condiment? For christsakes, you are adorning a piece of meat w/ more meat. I frequently see people peel it off or set it aside, as if to aide their guilt of consuming 1000 calorie burgers. Great, we killed a hog so you could just throw it away or leave it on your plate. I'm quite sure the final days of the Roman empire were spent finding ways to use bacon.
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