Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.wpost From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Lean Times and the Comeback of Bacon=BY COURTLAND MILLOY= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 92 04:54:43 EST Message-ID: <64.1992Nov4.045444@AmeriCast.com> Lean Times and the Comeback of Bacon=BY COURTLAND MILLOY= I love breakfast, could eat blueberry waffles with fried eggs and home fries morning, noon and night. But it wouldn't be complete without my favorite forbidden food: bacon. Add six thick strips of that flavorful fat, West Virginia-style, and count me among the contented souls. I affirm my love of this cholesterol-laden pork belly as the la- test issue of Supermarket News lets the hog out of the pen: Amer- icans are once again consuming bacon in record amounts, with the sizzling strip outselling all other breakfast meats by a snout. The cost of pork bellies went down so fast in the 1980s that nowadays almost anybody can "bring home the bacon." And so begins the economic lesson of this presidential campaign. It is no secret that, in the last decade, many Americans lived "high on the hog," if not above their means. The more-expensive pork chops, pork loins and sugar-cured hams were among our most popular meats. At the same time, Americans were showing health consciousness by staying away from fatty pork bellies, from which bacon is made. I even recall opting for a fruit platter, once. When surplus pork bellies were put in cold storage, bacon prices plummeted. Then, as the 1992 presidential campaign heated up, Americans be- gan realizing a disturbing answer to the standard election year question: Are you better off today than you were four years ago? The truth was that many Americans were worse off and were being forced to change their spending and eating habits. By August, we again were dining low on the hog, consuming a record 9 million pounds of cheap bacon a day, according to Super- market News. It pains me that the return to prominence of such a delicacy must accompany hard times and shrinking paychecks. Talk about voodoo economics. Dennis Smith, director of research at Linnco Futures Group in Chicago, says that bacon consumption has been setting monthly records since last November and that the appeal of cheap meat outweighs health concerns. "Bacon is a very good buy right now," Smith said, "but it must be noted that pork packers are trying to respond to the concerns of customers by requesting leaner hogs." The view from the retail side is that these lower-fat bacon pro- ducts aren't really burning a hole in the meat counter. "We've seen only a very slight growth in lean bacon," said a spokesman for Brookshires Grocery Co. in Tyler, Tex. Those so-called poultry-blended bacons just don't seem to hit the spot. Smith also says that the use of bacon by fast-food outlets - ba- con strips on burgers and bacon bits on salads - accounts for some of the increased bacon consumption. But the fact remains that in supermarkets surveyed by Information Resources of Chi- cago, old-fashioned fatback sales are up 10 percent to 25 percent over last year. What impact can a president have on how much bacon we eat? "If Clinton should win," Smith said, "we anticipate more govern- ment spending and programs." That might help create more jobs, but . . . "Pork traders will expect inflation and that will result in an increase in hog prices, and probably the cost of bacon," he ad- ded. "If Bush's plan to ship pork to the former Soviet Union goes through, the demand for pork bellies will increase," Smith said. Read: rise in the price of bacon. I asked Janet Stern about bacon's big comeback. Stern reports on the findings of the "bacon test kitchen" at the National Livestock and Meat Board in Chi- cago. Last year, when bacon sales were sorely sagging, she came up with a national "makin' bacon" recipe contest to help rekindle demand for the pork belly. The response was tremendous. The winner in the breakfast bacon category was a Mexican BLT, made with cherry tomato halves, bits of cilantro (a sort of pungent parsley), on top of an English muffin with shredded pepper jack cheese and strips of bacon. In Stern's view, the taste bud will always count as much as the vote in shaping our economy. "It is the sensation of bacon that people yearn for," she told me. "A lot of the pleasure of eating bacon comes from memories we have of home as children, with mom in the kitchen and the family gathered at the table for breakfast." Apparently bacon, like presidential campaigns, goes better with a helping of family values on the side.<02:54 11-04 Copyright 1992, The Washington Post. This story is from the Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar- chived or redistributed. For more information, send-email to American Cybercasting Cor- poration (usa@AmeriCast.COM)