March 8, 2014: Upcoming Baconfests, and 365 degree Uncured Applewood Smoked

MY LIFE WITH BACON CONTINUES this week with a review of the 356 Everyday Value bacon, and a couple of upcoming Baconfests.

THIS WEEK'S BACON is the aforementioned 365 degree Uncured Applewood Smoked bacon, from Whole Foods. This is their store brand. Some pictures below.

I decided to find out who actually makes this 365 brand bacon, which led me to this site: "caloriecount". It's an interesting site, which as you can see from the screen shot on the left, evaluates this bacon as "Grade F".  The nutritional value is just like other bacon, so no surprise there.

The site classifies this bacon as "everyday bacon" and I wholeheartedly agree.

It was about 1/4 inch thick, and weighed one pound 3 ounces in a one-pound package, so I got about one extra slice. This is truly "extra value", right?

It didn't stick to the pan, which indicates that it wasn't overly sugared, and curled normally. Nice and salty.  Strange thing was that it was crispy AND thick. Normall, you're either crispy OR thick, so I liked that part about this bacon.

It produced an average 120 ml of rendered bacon fat. I would call this 'everyday' bacon; nothing to write home about. Very bland colors; average taste, Crisp:3, Succulent: 2.5, Flavor 2.5



The Caloriecount home page allows you to search for specific foods, and also gives you lists of foods chosen with grades.  See below; left side is the home page, right side is the search for 'bacon'. I will have to look into how they come up with their grades...

Interestingly, "Fooducate" grades the same bacon as a B-.  Their site is a lot more colorful.

UPCOMING BACONFESTS INCLUDE Baconfest Chicago, and the Northshore Baconfest, both of which I intend to attend.

Baconfest Chicago info and tickets here.

Northshore Baconfest info an tickets here. They are only a month apart!  Yaay!