Those bacon ends and pieces were the only bacon I got at home growing up and it was still like the treat of the century to us!

I am now loyal to a local bacon brand, Burger's, that does not use water in the curing. No only does it have superior taste and texture, but it barely splatters when cooked! Burger's Smokehouse Country Bacon

Oh we get wonderful bacon around here! I go to a small "party store" and they carry smoked bacon and double smoked bacon. So delicious. I all ways buy the single smoked. They also have steaks and homemade pizza.

We cooked up the last pound of bacon we had in the freezer this weekend for my son and 2 granddaughters. Now I'm getting hungry!

It's just a little hole in the wall in Mikado. Only a party store, post office, bar, American Legion, community center and St. Vincent DePaul (aka, the Mikado Mall).

I like Kountry Boys(local Texas brand) bacon thick sliced and HEB has a Pitt boss smoked thick slice bacon that is excellent.

Hey, Kountry Boys was our neighbor!! DH grew up with him!!! I miss his sausage....

Falls Brand thick cut hardwood smoked bacon. Have 18 lbs of it in the freezer now.

We have a number of local growers of organic bacon which is perfectly lovely, but I've discovered Trader Joe's pre-cooked nitrate free bacon, which is the best and easiest bacon I've ever used. It's not too salty, it cooks to a wonderfully golden crisp state with just a minute or two in the microwave. Not much grease, just a couple of paper towels to compost. I don't think I'll ever buy anything else. I cook for 2 or 2.5 min (depending on the # of pieces - usually 3 or 4) on 40% power, blot any fat off the tops of the pieces and it's perfect every time.

I don't intend to deliberately offer a Debbie Downer-type comment, but it may seem like it.

Consistent research results have led to the broadly accepted view that so-called "processed meats" - lunch meats, sausage, bacon, etc -are carcinogenic. Not "may be", but "are". My searching for this comment brought me to the surprising finding that even the WHO is of this view.

We've tried to eliminate these foods entirely from our normal diet and have done so with pretty good success, with only occasional breaks. The one item I miss most is bacon. I may have it once or twice a year when travelling, never at home. If sacrificing bacon from my diet, the flavor of which I really like, may help me live longer, that's an easy choice to make.

Most so-called "nitrate-free" bacon and ham products can be so labeled because these chemicals aren't added. However, many of these products are made with a substance made from celery that has natural nitrates and nitrites. So, it's really not nitrate/nitrite free.

Thanks, Elmer, that's interesting and something I think I've read before but pushed to the back of my mind. I don't use it often, but it's my grandson's favorite breakfast food, so he has it several times a week. My brother in law died from colon cancer that I believe was caused by grilled/smoked/cured meats, so I want to be cautious about what my grandson eats. I'll do more reading and maybe limit his access more.

I like thick cut bacon and I like it hickory smoked. I dislike applewood bacon.
I generally buy Daily's or Wright's. Don't worry about nitrates etc. Bacon is not a food group for me. I eat once or twice a week or may binge for a couple more days in summer with BLTs.

When going out if I order a basic breakfast I will choose linguica and eggs over bacon and eggs.

olychick, take a look at some of the vegetarian breakfast "meat" things at a store like Whole Foods. I've found the brands in regular supermarkets, like the Morningstar products, have long ingredient lists that sound like the proverbial chemistry experiment. WFs and similar stores that endeavor to carry more healthy choices have products that are made with I'll call many traditional sausage seasonings while avoiding putting in any of the bad stuff. Several meatless ones I've tried aren't bad at all, with a taste that closely approximates what the real thing is like but with none of the dangerous ingredients.

Little kids are easy to feed good stuff to and like anything else, they'll enjoy what tastes good and what you make a big deal out of getting for them. We give our little grandkids "burgers" when they visit and they always ask for them. Thing is, they're wild salmon burgers. Don't tell them what a healthy food they're eating. They do taste good, I enjoy them too and not just when they're visiting us.

Ah, if only it were so easy. Being raised by two parents who feed him nothing but powerbars/fast/processed food. No fruits or veggies except at my house and when I bully my way into providing his packed lunch for him. He's very texture sensitive, won't eat anything "mixed up together" except black bean veggie chili I've given him since he was little and Trader Joe's black bean tacquitos (which have just been discontinued, a crisis at our house). He'll eat plain food, fresh wild salmon, marinated flank steak, broccoli, apples, pears, cooked carrots, asparagus - all veggies just plain and not mixed with anything else, not touching anything. If one little teeny tiny broccoli florette gets on his cooked carrots, it comes straight back out of his mouth. Seedless grapes? They better be fully seedless, no little nubs of anything inside or they get spit out the minute he finds one in his mouth. He'll eat frozen corn, plain. He'll eat cornbread, but not the Trader Joe's mix because it has whole dried corn in it. He's a great kid and not at all difficult, but has particular tastes/texture phobias. If I were raising him, I'd let him go hungry until he ate what's put in front of him, but he goes home and they just will let him fill up on crap, so I accommodate him as much as possible to get something healthy in him.

He barely will eat plain cheese pizza, just in the last couple of years - he'll eat the pepperoni, but wants it cooked separately, lol. No toasted cheese sandwiches, toast and cheese, but not together. I finally got him to try an almond butter jam sandwich, which is now the ONLY kind of sandwich he's ever eaten...and it has to be my homemade seedless jam. Seeds in anything are verboten. Sigh. Oh, and no chunks in the almond butter.

Gave up eating bacon and lunch meats about 10 yrs ago. I did enjoy the taste and love the smell of cooking bacon.

i buy Applegate bacon & their turkey bacon. its uncured which helps.

we eat regular bacon maybe once a month, only for Sunday breakfast....

we have cut out a lot of cured meats due to health concerns...

Elmer, we also love Salmon burgers, i buy at BJ's. very good!!!

I haven’t had bacon in years and should not have read this thread because now I’m craving it. :c(

Not a company, but my youngest son got a smoker a few months ago. He has made some bacon and it was really good. Unfortunately he lives 200 miles away so I don't get to sample it often.

We love bacon!

My favorite ways to eat bacon are BLTs, bacon, spinach and mushroom omelettes and refried bean, bacon and jack cheese burritos. Of course, just eating a slice all by itself is pretty darn good too.

I can't think of any local brands specific to my area. We used to buy the Kirkland brand but it was discontinued for a low sodium version and it just doesn't taste as good. A few years ago, we bought half of a 4-H pig at the fair and a local butcher smoked the bacon. That was delicious!

sportphntc, I don't know the Applegate products, but if they don't have nitrates/nitrites listed on the label (these are the bad guys), I'll bet they have some type of celery ingredient which provides the same nitrates and nitrites as if added directly and are suspected of causing the same problems when used in processing meat.

We stopped eating all red meat, including bacon, well over a decade ago. Interestingly, husband always had polyps during colonoscopies before this, now there aren't any to be found.

Why do all these food posts have to turn into health discussions? The OP likes bacon and was asking about the bacon we have or use in our regions. Sort of takes the floof out of the poster's intent when their post gets hijacked with the food avoidance crowd.

I find it funny that some of the oldest, healthiest posters here are those that pretty much eat what they want.

There are a lot of ways to respond, watchme, but here's one:

Q- What kind of bacon do you like?

A - Bacon? No, we don't eat it anymore, we're concerned about the health risks.

There's nothing more to it than that, with a bit more information filled in. That's normal in conversation.

As far as your saying "some of the oldest, healthiest posters here are those that pretty much eat what they want."

I suspect some (maybe many) of the posters here are smokers. Do you think that disproves the consensus of opinion among all the experts that smoking is bad for human health in many ways? Or since people here who eat bacon or diets unhealthy in other ways aren't dead yet (and they'are numerous, judging from many comments made from time to time about what's for dinner or what's being eaten) , that that suggests that those who try to eat more carefully and avoid dangerous foods are wasting their time with something that's unnecessary? Or that isn't important for good health and longevity? I hope not.

Since health implications were discussed above and no one seemed to object, I thought the difference in colonoscopy results was interesting enough to post. But to get back on subject, when we used to eat bacon it was always thick-cut and smoked. But I don't remember the specific brand. :)

I don’t know if it’s regional or not anymore, but my go-to brand when I do buy bacon is Hormel. We don’t buy it much, but I I do love it and occasionally buy it for BLTs in the summer, certain dishes that need a couple of slices, and for omelettes. I typically freeze it in 2-3 slice packages I can easily use which helps.

Bacon is the only processed meat I eat. Well, I have had the occasional hot dog when at a soccer game and there isnt much else to eat. In 3 colonoscopies, I have only had 1 small polyp.

Not local,but when my parents drive up to Wisconsin to visit family,they load up on bacon from a smokehouse named Helds. My siblings and parents love it. They will buy 50 pounds at a time. It's wrapped in one pound portions in white butcher paper. They keep it frozen. I don't care for it because it's extremely smoky and chewy. It never gets crispy,and I prefer my bacon crispy. I usually buy either Wright's or Oscar Meyer.

I love bacon. Nothing local around here though, that is special. I do get sausage in NC, at the Piggly Wiggly in a specific town - but not bacon.

The Amish nearby most likely provide bacon when they butcher a pig, but for the most part I am unaware of any special bacon for sale. What I do have access to is blue crab in the summer and oysters in the winter sold directly by the watermen in the area. If I put out traps from the dock, I can pull in crabs too but no oysters.