Turkey

by teaplease

Created on: January 22, 2010

Which tastes better regular bacon or turkey bacon?

Six-thirty in the morning, the sun claws its bleary way through the trees of Eureka Springs' switch-backs. I smell bacon.

Those people have no idea how close they came to having an unexpected guest for breakfast.

The aroma of cooking bacon, whether turkey or pork, turns heads like a shiny new sports car, aficionado or not.

When we fry bacon, it sizzles. Heat and moisture from the bacon vaporizes and travels through the atmosphere as tiny molecules that settle onto our olfactory nerve. You'll never mistake that scent. It is smoke, cure and salt. It is heavy and distinctive.

Meat gives off a certain type of odor when charred. Some people don't like meat and that smell is a turn-off. For most of us, though, we find ourselves craning our necks at stop lights along restaurant row or phoning our significant other on the way home to see if he or she wants to "fire up the grill tonight" because the neighbor down the street has an invisible (or possibly visible, if they are adding wet chunks of savory woods to their charcoal) cloud of barbecue enveloping the house.

Cures used in bacon-making release a sweetness; while salt, as anyone who has spent time near an ocean can attest, adds a kind of tang to the air, as well. Bacon comes pre-smoked, so that waft that called you from across the neighborhood is built into those tasty strips of fat and lean!

If you like bacon, it conjures up memories of texture, flavor and scent. It may even bring to mind happy moments of belonging and safety from the Sunday Brunches of childhood or before-school breakfasts at the kitchen table.

Pork bacon is high in fat, which is why most people prefer it over turkey bacon. Fat creates satiety. It lingers with us, coating the inside of our mouths and as denser calories (one gram of protein equals four calories, where one gram of fat equals nine calories - yup, that's twice as many) in our tummies. One serving of pork bacon is about two strips. They contain about nine grams of fat (uh huh, multiply nine grams times nine calories and you get about eighty calories of pure fat). The equivalent serving of turkey bacon (brands, as well as serving sizes can vary; use a food scale for accuracy) results in about five grams of fat (so, five times four equals twenty grams of fat).

You didn't want to talk about cholesterol, did you? Okay, well if that's a concern for you (as it is for me), you well know that you should not be eating bacon! Okay fine, I eat bacon. When I eat turkey bacon, it clogs my arteries almost as bad as pork bacon, which delivers between fifteen and thirty milligrams of cholesterol (again, depending on brand for a two slice serving). Telling yourself they're practically the same would be false. Our bodies create cholesterol from fats we eat, so eating more fat (like what comes in pork bacon) means our bodies can make more cholesterol than when we eat the lower fat alternative. For those of us who have a hereditary propensity for high cholesterol, this matters.

Not all is lost! The occasional sprinkling of either bacon (even pork with its higher fat) adds a great deal of flavor, due to its smoking, curing, salt and optionally-added, unhealthy char.

Plus, it’s protein. Humans need protein for muscle-building and many other bodily functions (including creating myelin, which covers neurons and allows for nerve regeneration in vertebrates), right? Pork bacon and turkey bacon both deliver about four grams of protein per two strip serving.

Twenty strips a day or even a week is not a healthy option but a couple of strips of either for Sunday Brunch, unless otherwise directed by your doctor, probably isn't going to blow your diet. If we add bacon to our menu and use it sparingly, it comes down to taste.

Personally, I grew up eating pork bacon from the hogs we raised. I like mine fried til it's all reddish-brown and black, nice and carcinogenic. It's even better when you drain the majority of grease from the pan and add some flour, stirring quickly to dissolve it in the remaining melted fat and crumbles of char. Then, add a bowl of salted milk and stir over medium heat until it thickens. That's what we call milk gravy and there's nothing better than bacon, milk gravy and biscuits.

Through years of rehabilitation (and habit), turkey bacon has become my bacon of choice. I have trained myself to look forward to it far beyond what a hard-liner might imagine. Its flavor and crunch is enjoyable enough that I do not miss eating pork bacon; however, this farm-girl would never recommend it for making biscuits and gravy.

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