It’s a favorite of many, but how healthy is it and is there a healthier way?

Bacon has gotten a bad rap, partly because of the over all low quality of the bacon produced here in the United States.

We really are what we eat. Eating meat from animals that have been confined, fed hormones and antibiotics and sub par feed sometimes even including chicken feces to cut costs, they are not treated well and at worst possibly abused, does not bode well for our health or our humanity.

Global Animal Welfare Partnership rates farms on a scale of 1-5+. 5+ is the highest rating granted. It means that these animals will have lived their entire lives on one farm. They are not crated but raised outdoors with fresh air, grass and sunshine without medications, hormones or GMO feed as animals should be.

Global Animal Welfare Partnership’s 5 Step Animal Ratings explained: https://nwfarmreview.wordpress.com/2011/11/17/5-step-program-global-animal-partnership/

Thompson Farms is the first farm to attain a 5+ rating. Check out the video below.
http://thompsonfarms.com/

Youtube video of Thompson’s Farms

Having recently attended a local cooking class at The Good Life, a cooking supply store here in Naples, FL, Chef Kristina San Filippo had introduced us to Thompson Farms products and demonstrated the difference between average store bacon and good quality organic non-gmo fed meat.

Most of us are used to the snap and crackle of bacon in a frying pan, oil spattering in all directions. I thought that was simply what bacon did when cooked. It turns out that most store bought bacon is injected with brine (salt and water) and the higher that water content, the more spatter there is when cooked. Because Thompson Farms does not inject their meat, there was virtually no spattering at all.

When you eat high quality bacon there actually are health benefits: Click to read: http://bacontoday.com/top-10-reasons-bacon-is-actually-healthy-for-you/

The fat cooked right off of the meat and it was delicious and far less salty than any other bacon I have ever eaten.

If you must eat meat, making conscious choices to be kinder to the animals as well as respecting your own body and health is the way to go.

Originally published:  http://www.hcbl.com/blog/bacon/