Listen, we’d all like to believe that bacon is perfect. It’s delicious, it smells great, it’s easy to cook, and it makes every breakfast better. But bacon has been hiding some seriously dark secrets from us, and we owe it to ourselves to face the truth. Don’t worry, we’ll start off easy.

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1. You constantly need MO’ BACON

You’ve eaten all the bacon you can get your greasy little hands on . . . and you just want more. That’s because bacon possesses “umami,” the savory flavor that “elicits an addictive neurochemical response” in your grey matter. Translation: it’s the heroin of breakfast foods. And addiction has never tasted so good.

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2. It can land you in a prison cell next to a guy who calls you “Sally.”

In Los Angeles, selling bacon-wrapped hot dogs is illegal because Los Angeles lawmakers are ~~soulless bastards~~ concerned for your health. The LA Health Department considers bacon to be a potentially hazardous food and vendors are forbidden to sell it from frozen food trucks . . . which is pretty awkward since the bacon-dog is “the official hot dog of LA.”

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3. It’s named after an arse.

The word “bacon” was derived from the High German word for “buttock.” Enjoy the view, bacon fans.

PicThx nerd-in-the-country

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4. People actually use “Eau de Bacon” to freshen up.

bacon-cologne

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5. It’s a prime location for creepy crawlies that want to eat you.

All bacon sold in the U.S. has to be treated for trichinella before it hits shelves. Trichinella is a highly contagious species of parasitic roundworm that crawls into your intestines and sucks the nutrients out of everything you eat (including bacon!). Pros: always having a bellyful of parasites to keep you company. Cons: being eaten alive from the inside by bacon-dwelling worms.

PicThnx bestabouthealth

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6. It’s full of poop and cannibalism.

The scary thing about trichinella worms (aside from the parasitism and eventual death) is that they’re transmitted one of three ways in pork: exposure to infected wildlife (fair), feeding animals their own waste (uh . . .) or cannibalism within an infected herd. Which means pigs . . . eating other pigs . . . that are full of worms. Because pigs love bacon just as much as we do.

PicThx Sodahead

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7. Waste from pig farms gets sprayed into the air, making a nice poop-scented air freshener.

A pig farm with 5,000 animals produces more feces than 50,000 people combined. That waste is stored in giant vats where it can leak into rivers and contaminate groundwater. A cheaper option is just spraying it into the air, which gives a whole different meaning to the phrase “shit storm.”

PicThx minionflyfishing

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8. It looks like Satan’s ear wax.

Bacon fat congeals and turns solid at room temperature, creating your very own novelty candle full of heart disease.

PicThx Simplyrecipes

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9. This bacon-wrapped gun exists because reasons.

Bacon. Bullets. Orange sunglasses. This is what good judgement looks like.

H/T Friedmush

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10. It’s breakfast with a side of cancer.

And just in case you survive the bacon-wrapped machine gun, bacon will still get you. With cancer. Research from the Karolinska Institute found that eating bacon can increase your risk of developing pancreatic cancer by 19%.

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