Iowa festival seems like a cruel joke. But then again, it does make us happy ...


It seemed a bit cruel, really. A bacon festival during diet season. But there it was, in Iowa, earlier this month. All you could eat.

The good news is that it's over. You missed it, thereby keeping your diet hopes alive. The festival was actually sold out, so even if you had been there and showed up at the door, you couldn't have gotten in. So, again, you're safe. At least for another year.

Otherwise you'd be as big as a pig right about now. The festival folks noted that last year's attendees ate about 6,000 pounds of bacon in one day. That translates to 96,000 strips. They're still tabulating this year's intake. No small feat.

The annual Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival is known for featuring bacon served up in many ways. Chocolate-dipped bacon. Bacon-flavored cupcakes.You get it. Iowans are good at this kind of thing. These are the same people who have a state fair that boasts fried butter on a stick. But you missed those, too, which is also a good thing.

This is the time of year when most of us have strayed from our New Year's diets. Not hard to do. And you don't have to go to a bacon festival in Iowa to falter. Just eating out in America these days is a dangerous proposition. Bacon, for instance, is everywhere.

There it was in my grilled chicken sandwich the other day. There it was in my chicken cheddar chowder, too. And there it was in my oh-I'm-being-so-good salad at lunch just this week. Bringing home the bacon takes on an all new meaning these days. It's being brought home in our bellies.

Of course, every last diet guru advises moderation. But has anything big ever been achieved using moderation? No.

Why have one strip if you can have two, as the fine folks in Iowa already know. And as my friend Bob always says, "You have to die of something." Why not bacon?

I was reminded of that this week when someone posted one of those e-card messages on my Facebook page: "Doctors are saying that each piece of bacon you eat takes 9 minutes off your life," it read. "Based on that math, I should have died in 1732."

But happy.