Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Tempe, Tofu, Bean Sprouts…. or Bacon.

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by

James A. Bacon
in

Hmmm. Tofu... yum, yum, YUCK!
Hmmm. Tofu… yum, yum, YUCK!

Who would have figured? PETA has selected Richmond, Va., as the 10th most “vegan friendly” city in the United States, behind Boulder, Colo., Las Vegas (really?), Salt Lake City, Seattle, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Portland and, at the No. 1 spot, Austin.

Writes PETA :

It’s somewhat ironic that a city that’s historically been a focal point of the tobacco industry is increasingly being known for health-promoting vegan fare. Richmond, Virginia, is packed with meat-free restaurants, including Phoenix Garden, Rooster Cart, Harrison St. Cafe, Ipanema, and RVA Vegan, a compassionate bakery. Not to be missed are the curried “chicken” salad and fried artichoke hearts at 821 Cafe. For late-night eats, both vegans and meat-eaters will enjoy Strange Matter, a live-music venue that doubles as an arcade and features cruelty-free dishes with such names as The Revenge and Famous Uncle Paul’s Vegan Mango Donut Holes.

For more than a decade, vegetarians and vegans in the commonwealth have gathered each June for the Richmond Vegetarian Festival. Admission to the 2013 fest is free!

Bacon! Bacon, bacon, bacon. Bacon, bacon.Bacon, bacon, bacon!
Bacon! … Bacon, bacon! … (Pant! Drool.) … Bacon, bacon, bacon!

As for me, the Bacon family and I are heading down to Shockoe Bottom Sunday to partake in Richmond’s first Bacon Festival. States Richmond.com: “More than 20 Richmond restaurants, like On the ROX, Halligan’s, TJ’s and Naked Onion, will whip up “bacon-centric dishes” and Devils Backbone Brewery and Bold Rock Hard Cider will be pouring more than 20 craft beers.”

The real moral of the story: Richmond has a great food scene!

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Comments

19 responses to “Tempe, Tofu, Bean Sprouts…. or Bacon.”

  1. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    I used to know a lady at NIH and she told me that if I knew the truth about grilling meat – ” The grilling of meat may generate dangerous levels of mutagenic and carcinogenic nitrosamines (NAs).”

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22980793

    that I’d think twice about eating stuff like bacon.

    I still eat it but I now treat it like puffing a cigarette..

    1. James A. Bacon Avatar
      James A. Bacon

      Uh, oh, it’s just a matter of time before some nanny stater tries to take my bacon away from me. That’s when I slip into the hills, unplug from the grid and challenge the revenuers to come get me.

      1. larryg Avatar
        larryg

        naw… they’ll just publish pictures of a perforated colon riddled with cancer caused by bacon.

        once Bacon gets up in the mountains he’ll get an attack of diarrhea and think back guiltily about all his past transgressions and crawl back to the nearest ObamaCare doctor and beg for forgiveness….as the doctor tries to pry his AR-15 from his stiff hands….while calling the nanny-squad to haul him off to the nearest re-education camp.

        I mean if you’re gonna freak on nanny govt conspiracy theories dang it…do it good…!!

  2. reed fawell III Avatar
    reed fawell III

    Right –

    There is no end to this nonsense.

    Lie down and the jerks will strip you of your name even – Bacon.

  3. DJRippert Avatar
    DJRippert

    You should try the tofu. Tofu Kra Paow (A Thai dish with many different spellings) is great. I mean – world class. But you have to like spicy food.

    As for the grilling of meat – I think it’s the charcoal they will come after rather than the meat. And who grills bacon anyway?

  4. Peter Galuszka Avatar
    Peter Galuszka

    Strip away Bacon? What will happen to the blog?

    1. reed fawell III Avatar
      reed fawell III

      Then it becomes “Tofu’s Rebellion.”

      Then the jerks have won – re-framed the entire discourse!

  5. DJRippert Avatar
    DJRippert

    As the summer pushed on ….

    http://bit.ly/13pJZ7S

    1. larryg Avatar
      larryg

      bacon ice cream sounds pretty disgusting to me…. I prefer plain
      old unadulterated Vanilla myself. Pasteurized of course.

  6. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    re: the govt taking your Bacon…

    ” To deal with the nitrosamine problem, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) lowered the permissible amount of nitrite in cured meats to that level considered necessary for botulism protection. Regulators, however, found it necessary to take additional steps with bacon because nitrosamines were found consistently in fried bacon samples. ”

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1424609/

    not just grilling – frying…. cured meats…

    there’s that nasty nanny state rearing it’s ugly head once again…..Jesus – 30+ years worth of nasty nanny interference with people’s “right” to eat cancer-causing ingredients!

    1. DJRippert Avatar
      DJRippert

      You posted two different references in your different comments. The first reference was to charcoal. The second was to nitrites.

      I have no problem with the government doing research on food and publishing the results. I have no problem with the government using its bully pulpit. I have no problem with the government protecting the rights of one group from the actions of another group (e.g. drunk driving or second hand smoke).

      I have a big problem when the government starts banning things like Nanny Bloomberg did with the large soda sales.

      1. larryg Avatar
        larryg

        re: ” As for the grilling of meat – I think it’s the charcoal”

        that was YOUR comment, not mine.

        I did mention grilling… and I did show govt and private sector findings of cancer-causing carcinogens in meats treated with nitrates.

        re : “I have a big problem when the government starts banning things like Nanny Bloomberg did with the large soda sales.”

        let’s get to the “meat” of this. If a food has ingredients in it that are known to cause cancer (as opposed to sugar in soft drinks), you are opposed to the govt banning those substances as ingredients in foods?

        right? any/all foods including those eaten by kids?

        be more clear in what you are saying please.

  7. reed fawell III Avatar
    reed fawell III

    If the government wants to get serious about American’s health, it should ban ice cream, meat, sugary bakery products, cigarettes, alcohol, children born out of wedlock, and people who are overweight. It should mandate minimum exercise requirements – so many steps taken per day, daily dental floss, annual health check-up, both mental and physical, as well as impose requirements for the minimum intake of certain medicines for certain defined conditions such as tendency toward high blood pressure, excess plaque, and cholesterol.

    1. reed fawell III Avatar
      reed fawell III

      Meanwhile I highly recommend The Prophets of Smoked Meat, a Journey through Texas Barbecue, by master meat-man Daniel Vaughn. It makes a great father’s day gift.

      And for daily Smoked Meat Work check out:

      http://fcg-bbq.blogspot.com/

    2. reed fawell III Avatar
      reed fawell III

      “If the government wants to get serious about American’s health … etc. etc.”

      I thought I was hanging these comments out to dry (i.e. to ridicule). But apparently not – that is quite scary.

      1. larryg Avatar
        larryg

        you were not clear guy and a lot of what you say is not that easy to understand because IMHO you are not clear.. especially when you go on these generalized anti-govt rants.

        be that as it may – “the govt getting serious about “good” health” is not the same as protecting people from stuff that can actually harm them even in minute amounts of adulteration.

        the Food and Drug and Meat Laws were passed in the early 1900’s not because some overbearing bureaucrat wanted to control people’s behavior but because people were being maimed and killed by wantonly irresponsible food production practices.

        today – in our hyper-charged political world – we seem unable to differentiate between outlawing large size colas and botulism and carcinogenic threats.

        1. reed fawell III Avatar
          reed fawell III

          Larry says “today – in our hyper-charged political world – we seem unable to differentiate between outlawing large size colas and botulism and carcinogenic threats.”

          Which of course it my entire and exclusive point.

          1. larryg Avatar
            larryg

            I bow to you superior intellect and reasoning in that case!

  8. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    re: if the govt wants to get serious

    I would say a balance needs to be struck – and my view is that the American people have a say in it and that the vast majority of them are not so keen on the idea of foods with cancer-causing ingredients in them.

    if there is a question – then they would like the label to disclose that the science has concerns – like the labels you see on cigarettes.

    I do NOT favor the govt telling people what to eat or not based on nutrition because much of it is about how MUCH you eat not WHAT you eat.

    EATING 3 McD big Macs a day is NOT the same as eating one per week or month and the govt has no businesses telling you how much … but they DO have a business telling you the number of calories.

    Would anyone here – advocate that we do away with nutrition labels that disclose ingredients and calories?

    step up now and say you are – if you are…. I think even the folks who don’t like nanny govt – rely on nutrition labels these days – to the point where they take them for granted…

    How many elected politicians do you know that advocate that the nutrition labels are govt nanny-state over-reach AND they’d vote to repeal the law requiring them?

    How many politicians in Va, if they took that stance, would be influencing the amount of votes they’d get or not in an election?

    let’s me real here.

    there is anti-govt blather – and there is a reality.

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