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How ‘Bacon and Eggs’ Became the American Breakfast

americantable.org

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Re: How ‘Bacon and Eggs’ Became the American Breakfast

#51

Post by bluedino »

mathattack wrote: post #4

Believe it or not, though, bacon’s association with the American breakfast is barely a century old I'm not sure why this would be hard to believe at all. In the 1920s, Bernays was approached by the Beech-Nut Packing Company – producers of everything from pork products to the nostalgic Beech-Nut bubble gum. Beech-Nut wanted to increase consumer demand for bacon. Bernays turned to his agency’s internal doctor and asked…

>> I'm not sure why this would be hard to believe at all.

It's very hard to believe - bacon, cured in salt was a preserved food and you will find references to it in almost any account of American history.

The early settlers in the 1500's brought pigs to America and it's been an American staple ever since.

Re: How ‘Bacon and Eggs’ Became the American Breakfast

#53

Post by bkmartin »

bluedino wrote: post #39
binarymax wrote: post #13

Bacon is one of the few things that I refuse to eat. I don't understand how anyone likes the stuff. It makes me wonder, if the all-American breakfast was a bowl of fruit and a glass of milk, would there have been an obesity epidemic?

The glass of milk goes with the bacon and eggs - but fruit really wasn't something most Americans had in the 1800's. Access to a cow, pig, and chicken were common though. What's the reason beef became so popular over lamb/goat/deer? Americans seem to stick to beef/chicken/pork when it comes to meats.

Beef, chicken, and pork are the cheapest most cost efficient animal proteins to produce. Its more of a matter of yield and fat content (eg. flavor). A single beef steer can produce more than 600lbs of meat. You can't get that much meat from a lamb, goat, and deer combined. Heck you couldn't get that from 2 of each of them. So you feed 1 mouth and get lots of yield. Chickens are the easiest of the poultry to raise and most versatile for cooking. Almost everyone eats chicken, so high demand. Even people who "don't eat red meat" will eat chicken and fish. And then there is the pig. Easy to domesticate, produces delicious meat at a high yield... and Bacon. Lamb, if prepared properly can be very good. But beef, chicken and pork are much more forgiving.

*grew up raising beef, chicken, and pork. Hunted deer. Had a pet goat (he was a jerk). Never raised sheep, but wouldn't mind having some lamb in my freezer.

Re: How ‘Bacon and Eggs’ Became the American Breakfast

#54

Post by diydsp »

bishun wrote: post #38
eggoa wrote: post #8

This is hardly the most sinister of Edward Bernays' campaigns. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torches_of_Freedom

For those inclined to investigate the affects of psychology [theory] on modern society, and how it has been adapted both commercially and by government, I suggest checking out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_of_the_Self Edward Louis Bernays was related to Sigmund Freud. This relationship and more is expounded upon in the above documentary, which is definitely worth watching (imho).

I second the Century of the Self. Also, a book was published in 2002 on Bernays . I found it extraordinarily interesting. [1]

When Bernays was hired to get more books sold, he persuaded architects to design houses with bookshelves built into them. on the principle that "nature abhors a vacuum." A slick mofo indeed.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/The-Father-Spin-Bernays-Relations/dp/0...

Re: How ‘Bacon and Eggs’ Became the American Breakfast

#55

Post by B-Con »

binarymax wrote: post #13

Bacon is one of the few things that I refuse to eat. I don't understand how anyone likes the stuff. It makes me wonder, if the all-American breakfast was a bowl of fruit and a glass of milk, would there have been an obesity epidemic?

> Bacon is one of the few things that I refuse to eat.

I don't refuse it, but I don't really care for it. It's pretty much just fat, which I don't find appealing.

Re: How ‘Bacon and Eggs’ Became the American Breakfast

#56

Post by patrickg_zill »

mathattack wrote: post #4

Believe it or not, though, bacon’s association with the American breakfast is barely a century old I'm not sure why this would be hard to believe at all. In the 1920s, Bernays was approached by the Beech-Nut Packing Company – producers of everything from pork products to the nostalgic Beech-Nut bubble gum. Beech-Nut wanted to increase consumer demand for bacon. Bernays turned to his agency’s internal doctor and asked…

A keto diet would see bacon and eggs as completely normal, provided you didn't have a lot of toast with it.

Re: How ‘Bacon and Eggs’ Became the American Breakfast

#57

Post by spongle »

bane wrote: post #42

A bit of hyperbole, but having married into an East Asian household and spent lots of time traveling around the world, I'm soundly convinced that a well defined breakfast meal, with its own traditions, foods and culinary style, is one of the greatest inventions of western civilization. I have to question this article because the American breakfast is pretty much just a local variant on the traditional full breakfast…

Fuck yes. The best part is the full English has changed into the "all day breakfast" in the last 20 years.

When some asshats blew up half of London in 2005, I had a full English breakfast (at 2pm) and two cups of tea, then walked 16 miles home and still wasn't hungry when I got in :)

Can't beat it.

Re: How ‘Bacon and Eggs’ Became the American Breakfast

#58

Post by rayiner »

dylandrop wrote: post #11
mathattack wrote: post #4

Believe it or not, though, bacon’s association with the American breakfast is barely a century old I'm not sure why this would be hard to believe at all. In the 1920s, Bernays was approached by the Beech-Nut Packing Company – producers of everything from pork products to the nostalgic Beech-Nut bubble gum. Beech-Nut wanted to increase consumer demand for bacon. Bernays turned to his agency’s internal doctor and asked…

>Before this, the majority of Americans ate more modest, often meatless breakfasts that might include fruit, a grain porridge (oat, wheat or corn meals) or a roll, and usually a cup of coffee. Pretty hard to argue that bacon is really as healthy as oatmeal & fruit. Just for reference, fried eggs have a crapload of cholesterol ( http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=fried+egg ) and bacon is pretty fattening and in gene…

Dietary cholesterol and dietary fat have very little to do with blood cholesterol and body fat.

Re: How ‘Bacon and Eggs’ Became the American Breakfast

#59

Post by rayiner »

binarymax wrote: post #13

Bacon is one of the few things that I refuse to eat. I don't understand how anyone likes the stuff. It makes me wonder, if the all-American breakfast was a bowl of fruit and a glass of milk, would there have been an obesity epidemic?

I'm pretty sure I could lose weight on a bacon and eggs diet.

A strip of pan-fried bacon has 40-50 calories. 3 strips is a pretty filling portion, because it's so rich, and that has 120-150 calories. Fry a couple of eggs in the bacon grease, and you've got yourself another 160 calories, for a total of 280-310 calories. In comparison, a fruit cup and a glass of 2% milk will probably be pushing 200. Importantly, with the bacon meal you won't be hungry again until lunch, while with the fruit and milk you'll be hungry by 10 am and run the risk of eating too much at lunch.

Americans are fat because of perverse incentives in the restaurant industry. For example, your morning coffee place never used to make much money. Black coffee, which has like no calories, isn't a high-margin business. Enter Starbucks, which upsells you on coffee with sugary syrup and high-margin pastries. Nobody would pick up a 6-ounce sirloin steak or 10 slices of bacon with their coffee, but will happily pick up a blueberry scone that has just as many calories. Restaurants also upsell you on portion sizes, because selling you twice as much food for only 50% more is very profitable when food costs are a fraction of your total costs. The difference between a sensible sized plate of pasta and the portions you get in American restaurants is 10 slices of bacon easily.

Re: How ‘Bacon and Eggs’ Became the American Breakfast

#60

Post by jere »

jrockway wrote: post #30
binarymax wrote: post #13

Bacon is one of the few things that I refuse to eat. I don't understand how anyone likes the stuff. It makes me wonder, if the all-American breakfast was a bowl of fruit and a glass of milk, would there have been an obesity epidemic?

Trust me, people aren't getting fat off of bacon and eggs. They're getting fat off of sugar water. The simple answer is satiety vs. calories. Bacon and eggs have a lot of calories, but you feel full for a while after eating them. Sugar water has almost as many calories, but you never feel full. So you drink 3000 calories of soda a day, and then you're fat. Basically, any premade food you find in the store is designed…

>Bacon and eggs have a lot of calories

I don't disagree with most of what you said, but a lot of people don't realize that eggs aren't really that high in calories. A large egg is ~70 calories. 2-3 is the most you usually get in a restaurant, so you're talking 200 calories for a meal. That's nothing.

Bacon on the other hand....

Anyway, let me just say that this thread is like stepping into some kind of bizarro world. Bacon is so ridiculously delicious that I'm having a hard time believing this article.

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