Bacon mania

Bacon mania refers to passionate bacon enthusiasm in the United States and Canada. Novelty bacon dishes and other bacon-related items have been popularized rapidly via the internet.

The movement has been traced to the late 1990s when high-protein foods became a more prominent diet focus due in part to the Atkins diet. Since then, bacon-focused events and gatherings celebrating the food have been reported and bacon-related exploits have been featured in media accounts.

Newer bacon creations have joined more traditional foods like the BLT, Cobb salad, clams casino, and club sandwich. Dishes include hard-boiled eggs coated in mayonnaise encased in bacon (the "heart attack snack") and Wendy's 'Baconator' (six strips of bacon on a half-pound cheeseburger). The growing popularity of bacon has also encouraged product introductions such as bacon salt,maple bacon donuts, and baconnaise.

Bacon food oddities include the bacon explosion ("a barbecued meat brick composed of 2 pounds of bacon wrapped around 2 pounds of sausage"),chicken-fried bacon, bacon-infused vodka,bacon ice cream, and chocolate-covered bacon, all popularized over the internet.

Bacon has been adapted into products including bacon bubble gum, bacon band-aids, sizzling-bacon-flavored rolling papers, and bacon air freshener. A bacon alarm clock that wakes people up with the smell of cooking bacon has been announced.

A 2009 Baltimore Sun story describes bacon as being "more than bacon," and stated that for "obsessive and adoring Bacon Nation it's about cheap thrills and a chance for Internet fame." Calling it "like an extreme sport," the article described the innovators and enthusiasts celebrating bacon in all its incarnations.

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