Chapter 28
We have all heard the saying that mother knows best.
Years ago when I was in my early twenties I started a job with a major Canadian food corporation as a driver salesman. I was on the road every weekday usually starting around 6 am. This was a very early start for me and I found it was much more convenient to have my breakfast while on the road. There were three different greasy spoon diners I frequented in the Toronto area.
Each morning after grabbing one of the complimentary Toronto Sun newspapers, I sat at my table. The Sun is a smaller tabloid paper and much easier to read while eating than the bulkier and more cumbersome Toronto Star.
Each morning after grabbing one of the complimentary Toronto Sun newspapers, I sat at my table. The Sun is a smaller tabloid paper and much easier to read while eating than the bulkier and more cumbersome Toronto Star.
Plus, checking out the Sunshine Girl on page three was also a daily ritual.
Without saying a word like clockwork my breakfast was prepared by either Johnny, Nick or Steve and then placed in front of me. Each morning it was the exact same breakfast. Bacon, two eggs, home fries, a double order of buttered toast, two double-doubles and an ice cold glass of water.
Seriously, almost every workday I ate this for breakfast.
On weekends at least one morning and sometimes both I went out to a local restaurant for breakfast where once again I ate the exact same thing. It would be a safe bet to say that I ate this same breakfast 300 mornings a year and that would be a very conservative estimate.
Ok, stay with me now.
I did that same job for twenty-three years. As well as being a great paying job, it was a job I truly loved. I could write a book just on my adventures and the things I witnessed during those twenty-three years working within Toronto’s inner city.
After twenty-three years and a minimum 300 breakfasts yearly, I consumed 6,900 breakfasts. Even to this day it still amazes me that I ate the same fuck’n meal that many times.
So what’s my point?
Considering each breakfast included 4 strips of bacon and not taking into account any other bacon I would've eaten during the year. I ingested a minimum of 1200 strips of cooked bacon annually.
Holy shit!
That’s 1200 strips yearly over twenty-three years or 27,600 bacon strips consumed over the length of my employment. A one pound package of bacon purchased in the supermarket contains between 16 and 20 strips or an average of 18 strips.
Oh my God!
I ate well over 1500 pounds or three quarters of a ton of bacon.
The health risk from eating bacon is largely to do with two food additives, potassium nitrate also known as saltpetre, and sodium nitrite. In 2015 the World Health Organization (WHO) included these two nitrates within the same Group 1 of carcinogens as tobacco. There was now sufficient evidence that they caused cancer, particularly colorectal cancer.
Tobacco?
Now that's some pretty serious company.
My mother during this period repeatedly warned me that nitrates were not good for my health and I should not be eating so much bacon. Her advice went in one ear and right out the other.
Did eating bacon every day give me colon cancer?
Without saying a word like clockwork my breakfast was prepared by either Johnny, Nick or Steve and then placed in front of me. Each morning it was the exact same breakfast. Bacon, two eggs, home fries, a double order of buttered toast, two double-doubles and an ice cold glass of water.
Seriously, almost every workday I ate this for breakfast.
On weekends at least one morning and sometimes both I went out to a local restaurant for breakfast where once again I ate the exact same thing. It would be a safe bet to say that I ate this same breakfast 300 mornings a year and that would be a very conservative estimate.
Ok, stay with me now.
I did that same job for twenty-three years. As well as being a great paying job, it was a job I truly loved. I could write a book just on my adventures and the things I witnessed during those twenty-three years working within Toronto’s inner city.
After twenty-three years and a minimum 300 breakfasts yearly, I consumed 6,900 breakfasts. Even to this day it still amazes me that I ate the same fuck’n meal that many times.
So what’s my point?
Considering each breakfast included 4 strips of bacon and not taking into account any other bacon I would've eaten during the year. I ingested a minimum of 1200 strips of cooked bacon annually.
Holy shit!
That’s 1200 strips yearly over twenty-three years or 27,600 bacon strips consumed over the length of my employment. A one pound package of bacon purchased in the supermarket contains between 16 and 20 strips or an average of 18 strips.
Oh my God!
I ate well over 1500 pounds or three quarters of a ton of bacon.
The health risk from eating bacon is largely to do with two food additives, potassium nitrate also known as saltpetre, and sodium nitrite. In 2015 the World Health Organization (WHO) included these two nitrates within the same Group 1 of carcinogens as tobacco. There was now sufficient evidence that they caused cancer, particularly colorectal cancer.
Tobacco?
Now that's some pretty serious company.
My mother during this period repeatedly warned me that nitrates were not good for my health and I should not be eating so much bacon. Her advice went in one ear and right out the other.
Did eating bacon every day give me colon cancer?
I left that job in my early forties and nine years later I was diagnosed. Or around the same amount of time it takes for a small polyp to develop into a malignant tumour.
Hmm.
The more I researched about nitrates in bacon, the more I realized how my unhealthy morning eating habits most definitely had a lot to do with my cancer diagnosis.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind eating that much bacon was a major factor as to why I am writing this journal today.
I should have listened to my mother back then. But no, I was the carefree driver salesman who thought he knew it all. God how I wish now I had taken her advice.
My mother did in fact know best and now I hardly ever eat bacon anymore.
Hmm.
The more I researched about nitrates in bacon, the more I realized how my unhealthy morning eating habits most definitely had a lot to do with my cancer diagnosis.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind eating that much bacon was a major factor as to why I am writing this journal today.
I should have listened to my mother back then. But no, I was the carefree driver salesman who thought he knew it all. God how I wish now I had taken her advice.
My mother did in fact know best and now I hardly ever eat bacon anymore.