Bacon was a hot commodity in my house growing up – four siblings can do that to a family. I fondly remember watching anxiously as my mother cooked the bacon and we fought over who was getting the next slice. We were told that we couldn’t eat too much, because bacon was bad for us. And that’s how it was back in the day, during the height of the saturated fat craze. Now things are turning on their head and experts are starting to believe that carbs/sugar, not fat, are what causes all those heart problems that we unfairly pinned on poor bacon. And it makes sense. If the human race evolved over the course of millions of years eating mostly meat, how would it be that newly-introduced products like grain and sugar are better for us?

Since bringing animal fat back into the house a couple months ago (although over the years I would sometimes sneak bacon fat into gravies and refried beans, but feel guilty about it), it’s completely changed our weekend breakfasts. I usually fry the bacon in a pan and then cook our eggs in some of the bacon fat (with a little added butter, 1/2 a tsp per set of eggs), and they’ve never tasted so good. Between the three of us (wife, myself, and nearly-two-year old son), we gobble down half of a 12oz package of bacon each day. On the days that I’m sick of bacon (and face it, it happens to the best of us), I usually have a good chunk of smoked salmon or beef jerky and one BabyBell cheese.

I should also say that the above picture isn’t indicative of our usual breakfasts, but we were getting rid of some Hormel bacon we found stuffed in the back of our freezer so we didn’t have much, and it was nowhere near as tasty as the nitrite-free Trader Joe’s version we’ve come to love. Also, I tend to eat mostly berries (rasp/blue/black) to complement my morning meat but we were out, and the kiwi/banana combo was admittedly a little too sweet for my tastes.