Macon GA's collegiate baseball team is nicknamed Bacon. The Macon Bacons. It's catchy, it's cute, it's a wonderful play on words and it was chosen by the fans of the college baseball team. But in today's world you knew it was only a matter of time before someone was offended and demanded a name change. But this time instead of PETA, it was a medical group that thinks you are too dumb to understand the risks associated with consuming bacon.
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine bought ad space on a billboard asking people to "Keep Bacon Off Your Plate." Anna Herby, nutrition education coordinator for the group penned a letter to Brandon Raphael, president of the college, demanding the team change its name to Macon Facon Bacon to promote a plant based alternative to bacon.
Ms. Herby made a couple of points to support her demands. First, she said people do not realize that the processed meat contains ingredients that can increase the risk of colorectal cancer by 18%. Secondly, she said the fake plant based substitute is just as good as the real deal. She is a bald-faced liar and her pants are probably on fire. Mostly because there is nothing except real bacon that tastes like real bacon.
But more importantly she misrepresents the science. Even in her own letter, she mentions that the increase in chances of getting colorectal cancer require a person to eat several pieces of bacon a day over a significantly long period of time. Similar to the claims about the herbicide, Round Up, in which the plaintiffs claimed that roundup caused a number of different diseases based upon a scientific study that involved giving the chemical to rats in a laboratory. What was conveniently left out and supported by the judge in that legal case was the rats were given 1000 times the dosage that a normal farmer or landscaper would be exposed to in their lifetime. Most people are not eating several pieces of bacon every day for 25 or 30 years. Not to mention that even if you did, you still have a 82% chance of not getting colorectal cancer.
We live in a world today where you just cannot enjoy life or have any fun. Someone is out there waiting to take it all away because they live in a world dominated by fear. Were we to have this same attitude 1000 years ago or 500 years ago or even 60 years ago, think of all the great achievements that would not have occurred. Nobody would have set sail across an ocean with no idea what would happen, nor would we have gone to the moon. Nobody would have decided that living under a tyrannical king was a bad thing and decided to risk their life for freedom. But that's what those in power want. A group of people that are afraid even if the negative consequences are not likely to occur.
To address Ms. Hardy's concern that the nickname makes me want to eat more bacon, she's right. But I'm aware of the potential consequences, and as an adult I have the ability to limit my consumption of tasty, tasty bacon. Something she and others of her ilk believe we can't do.