Why Is Bacon Considered A Breakfast Food?

Sure, everyone knows that bacon and eggs are a traditional breakfast - but why? Listen in to learn how Freud's nephew invented PR and changed the way America eats breakfast.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hey, brain Stuff,
it's me Christian Sager. Every day before I head into
the studio, I have a healthy, hearty breakfast of eggs, coffee,
and of course bacon. Well I'm vegetarian, so in my
case it's veggie bacon. Who has their life together enough
to eat breakfast every day? Anyways? Right, that's crazy talk.

(00:25):
But the point is this. If you are in the
United States, then you already know that bacon is one
of the most popular breakfast foods in civilization, right up
there with eggs. But this wasn't always the case. For
much of American history, breakfast would be something simple like
a slice of buttered toast with coffee and orange juice.
And believe it or not, there's one man responsible for

(00:47):
changing the way America eats breakfast. His name Edward Burnet's.
I know, I know you're probably wondering, how could just
one guy sway the minds of millions. Wasn't bacon already around? Yeah? Sure,
bacon or cured pork has been around in European cuisine
for hundreds and hundreds of years, but it wasn't thought
of as a breakfast food. So in n and Outfoot

(01:10):
named the Beechnut Packing Company hired Edward Burnet's to boost
their bacon sales. Most ad guys at the time would
have high tailed it to a pitch room brainstorming catchy
slogans like Macon bacon, for example, or that bacon pancake
song from Adventure Time. But Burnet's didn't go straight for ads. Instead,

(01:31):
he commissioned a study. In a quote scientific poll burn
Has had, a physician asked five thousand doctors the same
loaded question, is a quote hearty breakfast better than a
light breakfast to replace energy lost by the body at night.
Because of the way the poll was phrased, most doctors
agreed that a hearty breakfast was superior. Berne's reported these

(01:54):
quote scientific results to other doctors across the United States.
He also embarked on a broadcast in print campaign reporting
these results along with advertisements for bacon. This campaign exhibited
some brilliant, if not exactly ethical strategies. First, it used
the appearance of objective scientific evidence. Second, this evidence came

(02:18):
from trusted authority figures, and third it sounded like nutritional
advice rather than an add whether you like bacon or
not you can't argue with the results. Beach nut profits
sword and today, bacon is a major breakfast heavyweight. Each year,
people consume more than one point seven billion pounds of

(02:39):
this stuff in the United States alone, and that's just
counting statistics from the food service industry. A little more
than half of all U S homes keep bacon on
hand at all times. So there you have it, the
story of how one man fundamentally changed the way America
eats every morning. That's not the only thing he's successfully

(03:00):
sold either. He popularized soap, cigarettes, and even one warm
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