Bacon packaging is distinctly dishonest.
Has anyone ever noticed how markedly different bacon packaging is here in Canada (and maybe elsewhere). Let me start with a story.
Over half a century ago I had a very elderly great aunt who had a reputation for being quite stingy. She had lots of money and lived well but when she shopped in her small town seaside resort in the south of England, well, lets just say she was very careful. One day she went into Sainsbury's, a major grocer there, and at the meat counter she asked the butcher to hold up a tray of sliced bacon so she could see it. When he held it closer for her to see, she said "Well, show me the other side of it. I'm paying for that too, am I not?" The fact of the matter is we all inspect bacon closely, the majority of us looking at how much fat versus how much lean meat is visible in the slices. The fat makes it really tasty, but we certainly don't want all or substantially all fat in our bacon.
Meat is usually presented in clear plastic, sealed packages, and sliced bacon is no exception. Unlike other sliced meat, for example packaged ham or salami, an internal, printed cardboard label completely obscures the rear while it folds over about one third of the front. neatly covering the face of the front rasher of bacon. Because of this arrangement, viewing the face of even one slice of bacon is made impossible. All that can be seen is the layered edges of the slices presented as a whole. The shopper can see roughly how many slices there are and how thick they are, but how fatty the actual content is remains obscured and unknown. This is clearly a deliberate ploy by the producers to keep the shopper in the dark about what the meat inside is really like. If not, I would like to hear another explanation. In that the practise is quite standard, I can only conclude that food retailers are in on the con, if not perhaps even the villains behind it. Is it they who demand this style of dishonest presentation, or is it the bacon producers? I bet it's the retail industry.
Why do we, the consumers, meekly accept this type of dishonesty? We would never buy other produce with our eyes shut, yet this is exactly what we do with sliced bacon. Other packaged food inside closed packaging are of a very standard product, very consistent, very predicatable. Such is not the case with bacon. Every purchase is a roll of the dice just how meaty or how fatty the contents of a package are. It's about time we created a stink at our retail stores. They may be treating us like fools but our quiet acceptance is proving this view of us as correct.
https://www.google.ca/search?q=bacon...%3B1993%3B1268
