Editorial: Health nuts going after yummy bacon

The Health Nazis have resumed their attacks on everything that is good and wholesome about life.

Last week, the pinko commies at the United Nations’ World Health Organization announced that bacon kills people. The breakfast staple – and one of the clearest signs that God loves us – is, they said a carcinogen in the same class as tobacco and asbestos.

They did, however, hedge their statement in saying that bacon was not equally dangerous as asbestos or tobacco. The Enterprise would also point out that to our knowledge there has been no evidence that bacon, unlike asbestos or tobacco, has ever been linked to lung cancer. The WHO maintains that bacon causes colorectal cancer.

And it’s not just bacon that they want you to cut back on, it’s sausage and other processed meats, including the all-American hot dog. And if that’s not enough of an attack on life’s pleasures, they also threw red meat into the mix.

There’s a chance, these folks say, that if you eat bacon, sausage, steak, and hot dogs, then you will die. Of course, leading statisticians with our local funeral home will probably point that regardless of what you eat, you will also die.

It was, in fact, former US Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders who pronounced years ago that “we will all probably die of something.”

Research by The Clarendon Enterprise seems to bear Gen. Elders out, and it seems to hold true for people who eat nothing but tofu and bean sprouts as much as people who eat bacon, french fries, and Blue Bell ice cream (if you can get your hands on it.)

Never content to just ruin one good food, Health Nazis this week published an article in the British Medical Journal going after soda pops. And this time it’s not diabetes you have to worry about. This group says if you’re a man, sodas can cause heart failure. The effect, they say, is the same whether it’s sweetened by sugar or by artificial means.

Tea, coffee, and fruit juice were not included in the heart-stopping study, and it only focused on older men in Sweden. Bizarre, but we can’t make this stuff up.

We don’t have enough room to go into everything that “they say” is bad for you. Salt, sugar, butter, donuts… the list would go on and on.

Your editor isn’t a nutritionist, a doctor, or a biologist, but he has stayed in several Holiday Inns and conducted extensive non-scientific research on bacon and red meat. The health advisory from the Enterprise then is go easy in all things but don’t deny yourself life’s pleasures.

Eat your bacon, have a hot dog, have a Coke, and smile! You’re an American for goodness sake. This is what you’re supposed to do. But be warned, if you eat a pound of bacon a day, engage in competitive hot dog eating, or drink several 44-ounce Cokes in one day, that might have deleterious effects on your health. We’re not saying you’ll die (although you will… eventually), but we are saying “go easy.”

Don’t let these nut jobs with their tax-funded attacks on the pleasures of life get you down. You deserve happiness. There are plenty of other things to get depressed about… the Obama presidency, Daylight Savings Time, the growing scarcity of the world’s helium reserves, or the fact that you still can’t buy a margarita in Clarendon. If eating a slice or six of bacon makes you feel better, do it. All the studies confirm it. Life’s too short, so make the most of the time you have and bon appétit!