yesterday I cooked some local bacon...this morning I'm cooking Oscar Mayer

the bacon we had yesterday was Thompson Valley premium hickory smoked.

Thompson Valley is about ten miles from where I live...likely just a local product.Sucks to be you if you like bacon and they dont carry this stuff where you live

and it is delicious. I brined the whole piece of side pork and then smoked it and now have about 10 more pounds of bacon for the rest of the winter. But you are right, CAFO pork is nasty and there's nothing like pasture raised pork.

we have a GREAT local product.
Oscar Mayer was all I had in the fridge so I'm making it to serve Mrs Backwoods bacon and eggs in bed with toast.....luckily I still have some local butter.

I won't make the mistake of buying a national brand again

But at least I'm not causing any animals to be raised just to be slaughtered. Yeh, I know it sounds holier than though.

I've tried it and it isn't too bad.

Nothing wrong with anyone lowering the animal suffering in the world.

Yeah I'm a hypocrite...I love animals yet I'm a meat eater.

I praise anyone who cares about animals

There are vast differences between bacon offered by the same company. Oscar Mayer has at least 10 grades of bacon available, as does Wright, Farmland, Ohse, and 20 other processors. I am responsible for purchasing a lot of food from Sysco, US Foods, and a couple other suppliers. Generally you get what you pay for with bacon. Current prices range between around $2.50/lb to over $10, there are probably 100 different products to choose from. We have been using a Wright product for sliced bacon, and a farmland ununiform product for recipes. To get to these products, I sampled at least 20 products.

I think my arteries can afford it. It's truly magnificent stuff!

but my experience is that whether it be local or not sometimes it was good sometimes it was bad. It went both ways. There were times I'd swear off local then others where I'd swear off national brands. it just depends on the hog and pretty much how it was killed that affects the taste/smell

As I get older the more I pass up the meats for the vegs

Since China bought Cudahy and the Farmland brands of pork products, I only buy Neuskes or local.

Big Agro is bad enough, but I have a feeling that pigs in China are extremely contaminated with even more lax oversight, despite the promises when China bought Cudahy.

with three varieties of bacon that are ALL damn good - the pigs are 'heirloom' and cared for without the use of growth hormones or antibiotics, and no sodium nitrite is used to cure the bacon.

I don't eat bacon very much, but when I get a hankering for it, that's what I buy. Expensive, but worth it IMO.

They also make great sausages, truffle butter, etc. The owners are natives of France, hence the name inspired by French classic literature.

Better treated, better tasting. Browning burger and there is nothing to drain, have to oil the pan first even.