Posted on February 2, 2009 Posted by John Scalzi 43 Comments
I am famously associated with bacon; that said, even I wouldn’t attempt this. But I suppose if he survives he’ll have something to tell the grandkids one day. Also, something to tell his heart surgeon.
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I’m waiting for the nutritional and medical studies comparing the effects of a month-long bacon-only diet with the better-publicized month-long McDonald’s diet. I have to admit, I’m morbidly curious as to which is more deleterious…
Is this going to turn out like “Supersize me?”
I wonder if he counts his cholestrol-lowering medication as ‘anything healthy.’
On that note, I am making bacon-wrapped apples for dinner tonight. My wife is more amused than horrified.
This sounds like it could literally kill you.
He is going to have a mind-blowing conversion to anti-baconism and repent his gluttonous ways, you mark my words. Shortly after that he will die of bacon overdose.
I could feel my arteries hardening just reading about it. o.O
I suspect that a month-long Big Mac diet would be more healthy than this. At least the Big Mac has a tiny bit of fiber in it.
>_<
I like bacon as much as the next guy, but that’s messed up.
It makes me think of my father, who, after his divorce, had bacon every morning and saved the grease, and used it in all his other cooking. Everything he made was wonderful.
He’s had a quadruple bypass, a partially completed angioplasty that was halted because his heart was too weak, he retains water like a mofo because of his hypertension, and he’s always suffering from pneumonia-like symptoms from his congestive heart failure. :(
(Sorry for being a killjoy. Seriously, I do like bacon. Cooked some up yesterday, in fact. But this kind of excess for shits and giggles . . . ugh.)
I hope he doesn’t have any flatmates.
If he does, I hope he doesn’t share a washroom with them.
Or a kitchen.
I realize that being a vegetarian makes me more sensitive than most to the foul smells associated with cooking fat, but seriously, eew. (and no, I don’t mean “eww, murder! I’m telling PETA.” I mean “Eww, that smell makes me want to chuck up my lunch. How on earth could anyone find that appetizing?” Bacon=tasty. Bacon fat=absolutely foul in every conceivable way).
I seriously can’t tell my 10 year old son about this. He would have to do it. He eats 4 pieces a day.
The Maasai are famous for eating nothing but their cattle, even the blood. Nobody can figure out why this doesn’t kill them.
He’s definitely rasher than you, John.
I’m thinking I would come to hate the taste of bacon…. and that would be terrible.
Sounds like an extreme form of the start of the Atkins Diet.
The referenced page has many examples of why this project is *not* doomed to failure.
Morgan Spurlock is getting a migraine now for reasons he doesn’t understand.
Unless he is one of the approximately 5% of hypertension patients who is actually sodium sensitive, the worst he is likely to suffer from this experiment is early symptoms of scurvy. Bacon has a completely undeserved bad rap.
It can’t be that bad. Pigs seem ok and they’re made of the stuff.
I could be tempted to live on a diet of Spanish jamón ibérico de bellota but, sadly, at AU$350 kg in Oz I will have to survive on the 100 or so grams a week we can afford.
Part of the joy of bacon is coming back to it after a time of not-bacon. The light is brightest in contrast with the darkness.
Bacon is best when you get really fuckin’ good bacon, the hand crafted hardwood smoked stuff, on a burger of grass-fed organic beef, or in a BLT with market fresh produce on butter-seared sourdough.
Bacon is too wonderful to be trivial. Make your bacon count.
It’s rather ironic that in Canada, February is Heart and Stroke Month. This guy could be their “What Not To Do” poster boy!
Mmmm. I think I could survive that. Breakfast and lunch would be rather richer than I’m used to (cereal and PB&J), but dinner would be very similar! And either way, it’s only 4 weeks, and I <3 bacon!
It’s one of those things that’s much more interesting to read about than actually do, I suspect.
(The Maasai do in fact rely on their cattle, but they don’t eat “nothing but” their cattle.)
Sounds like an Atkins diet on steroids….maybe the Atkins from hell would be an even better description.
That is Mike Nelson of MST3K fame, so I’m thinking there’s going to be a punchline here.
http://www.theimpulsivebuy.com/wordpress/2009/01/28/review-vosges-mos-bacon-bar/
Chocolate covered bacon!!!!
My love of bacon rivals yours, John, and I can’t even picture attempting what Mike’s doing.
Not least because bacon is more than something one eats by itself. One should appreciate its presence around a scallop, next to waffles, on a burger, and in a quiche.
There’s also the health implications. I’m assuming Mike has to be joking; trying this seriously would turn him into a Darwin Award candidate real fast.
Interestingly, not only does the Washington SF Association have it’s own Mike Nelson, but he has his own domain: http://www.seahunt.org …
Coming soon to RiffTrax!
28 DAYS LATER II: MIKE NELSON HAS BYPASS SURGERY!
(from the people who brought you SUPERSIZE ME, because the producers are just sadistic like that.)
Physically, I think he’d be fine aside from a little malnutrition and losing a lot of weight. I don’t think it would be as bad as an old Big Mac diet.
Mentally, I see him getting really sick of bacon pretty quickly. I don’t care what kind of food you eat, if it’s all you eat then you’ll get tired of it. He might have to spend the rest of the month in a drunken stupor to get through it.
This is rather disgusting. And most disappointing, because it may kill a man who is very, very funny.
On the upside, he gets to eat tasty food.
I guess it all balances out.
I anticipate virulent acne.
If he were a real man he wouldn’t have picked the shortest month to do this!
After reading his post yesterday where he visits one of his favorite bacon stores, I think there will be enough variety in the bacon he eats to keep him from getting too bored with it as the only solid he eats for a month. The fact that he is allowing himself to keep beer on the menu of consumables proves he is not too crazy here!
Go Mike!
He’s… um… he’s going to be in digestive distress. This is my prediction.
Also, I feel like a lot of us are assuming that he’s going to be eating like 9000 calories per day. Not necessarily. Let’s say he limits himself to 2400 or below. Sure a lot more calories than usual will be from fat instead of carbohydrates, but I don’t think he’s going to kill himself.
What he might do, considering the calorie-density of bacon, is find himself hungry an awful lot because he’s used to getting more volume out of his daily food intake.
I have a recipe for a ovely bacon blue cheese dip I can suggest if he’d like a little variety and a chance to really clog the rest of the arterial spaces with cheese, cream and cream cheese…
Oh, Mike went to Tip Top Meats in Carlsbad! That is a place full of wonder. Amazing food, and while you eat in the restaurant a little old man with an accordion serenades you. mmmmmmbacon
Digestive distress would probably be my primary concern, yes… that and getting really sick of bacon.
Hmmm . . . Can you say “acid ketosis”? One month of protein and fat but no carbs will give Mike the worst halatosis this side of a vulture. Also, long before the ateries petrify, he’ll be in need of a kidney transplant.
Good luck.
Nuts, the link is FARK’ed.
Or should I say “Scalzi’ed”?
Bacon! Bacon! So wonderous sweet!
Its the tastiest of all pig meat!
I’d like to state before I die,
That I’ve tasted every pig in the sty!
GeorgeS, I can say “ketoacidosis” better than you, and I also know that isn’t what he’s courting. Benign dietary ketosis? You bet your keister. Lipolysis might be the better term in this case. The body burns fat for fuel in the absence of carbs, with the brain’s glucose needs getting met by the liver kicking its gluconeogenesis capacity into higher gear (translation: making glucose from protein). The partially burned fat cells turn ketone sticks pretty colors. That doesn’t mean he’s going to end up with damaged kidneys. But the worst he’s facing? Halitosis and some interesting times in the bathroom. Oh, and dropping at least 10 pounds alongside a few days of carb withdrawal that might be ameliorated by the beer.
Lysana @41: Given that Mike intends to enjoy beer in addition to his bacon(s), is he even likely to reach benign dietary ketosis? Of a handful of people I’ve observed following the way of Atkins, most seemed to need to reduce carbo intake to nearly zero for the first week or so; none who could not stay off beer for that long ever had much success, even when limited to 8oz/day.
better than a month of the Bacon Explosion!
http://www.bbqaddicts.com/bacon-explosion.html