- 1 day ago
Today on Epicurious, we’ve asked meat experts Patrick McLaughlin, Ben Turley, and Will Horowitz to give us their unfiltered, honest reviews of some prominent bacon brands found on supermarket shelves. Which bacon packs the most bang for your buck, and which should you avoid at all costs?
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00:00We've gathered three meat purveyors to blind taste test every brand of bacon we could get
00:05our hands on to see which ones meet their standards. All bacon was prepared according
00:13to the instructions on their packaging. Oscar Mayer, original.
00:19Color is good. Pretty glistening, which is great. Means some of the fat is like rendered out but not
00:24too much. Smells pretty sweet. When I'm eating bacon, it's got to have a balanced flavor
00:28between the saltiness, the sweetness, the smokiness. The salt is like carrying it but the sweetness
00:36from the sugar is also making it just like very unctuous and like rounding it out. I'm also looking
00:41for a satisfying texture. I want like a thick cut bacon where you can really taste that complexity
00:47to it. I do want some like crispy edge and I do still want to be able to bite into
00:51the fat and
00:51have it almost like pop in your mouth. Fat to meat ratio is really important. Fat is essential to it.
00:57I'm usually looking for around a 60% fat, 40% meat. When you cook bacon, obviously a lot of
01:04that fat is
01:04going to render. So you want a higher fat ratio because you're going to lose some of that in your
01:09cooking time. This is pretty good. It's fairly balanced. The smoke does taste natural but it's a
01:16very quick smoke for sure. Texture is great. It's crispy but it has a little bit of chew. The fat
01:22is still kind
01:22of like popping a little bit. Pretty high in fat to me. It looks cured because I can see the
01:28pink
01:28color. One of the things that curing does is it keeps that like nice pink hue. Otherwise this would
01:35just be a flat gray palette. It also keeps you from getting botulism. Every single bacon is cured. Even
01:41it says uncured. This is probably sold as a slightly premium style big box store bacon.
01:47I had a feeling. Oh my god. Is that what I'm eating right now? Naturally hardwood smoked Oscar
01:55Meyer. They have the Oscar Meyer mobile. It's pretty good. Cured with water. So that's a wet cure.
02:00There's two basic ways to cure. Wet curing is normally just called brining. Oldest school way for me is
02:07dry curing. These are techniques that we've been doing for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years.
02:11In some cases thousands. And it has the sodium nitrite. That's why you're seeing the
02:16pink color. This is a good bacon. I'd be completely fine having this on my bodega bacon egg and cheese
02:24sandwich. I'm going to keep eating it. Bulls head naturally smoked. If you told a kid to draw a piece
02:32of bacon in like the fifth grade this is a thousand percent what would happen. Got this fat line up
02:38top and
02:38that meat down below. When we talk about ideal ratios this is pretty good. The flavor
02:46is balanced. It's coming off as like a little chewier. Very very very little lean meat on this guy.
02:53It's mostly fat. It was really really thin so it doesn't have a lot of that texture which I think
02:57is kind of like robbing the fat of the experience I want. You could tell that like there wasn't a
03:01lot of
03:02muscle work. There wasn't a lot of flavor developed. My guess is this was created in record record time.
03:09I don't know. What's a bad one? Smithfield? Oh come on. It's boar's head. They're usually the highest price
03:15per pound in like regular supermarkets. It's too thin. It's not really smoked that well. Naturally smoked.
03:24They must have been naturally smoking something. That's for sure. When you're smoking you're achieving taste.
03:30Smell. You can transform the protein itself by cooking it and you're changing the color.
03:37They're trying to tell the customer that they don't use liquid smoke. Sodium nitrate is the most commonly
03:43used curing agent. It's called pink salt because it's actually pink. It's not naturally occurring as
03:48pink but it's colored pink deliberately so you don't confuse it with regular salt because if you did
03:54you would get sick. It's a naturally occurring salt that they found actually just kept meat pink. The
04:02sodium nitrite is what's going to be most quickly active. Allows you one to be able to cook at a
04:08lower
04:08temperature while keeping it safe for consumption and it keeps that nice pink hue and you get suckered
04:16into buying another pack of boar's head because it looks so pretty. This is a bad bacon.
04:23Peter Luger. Extra thick cut. Feels like a little bit of a thicker cut. It's like three of the boar's
04:29head
04:29slices put together. You can see the side of the belly on this one. Already I can tell you this
04:36is probably
04:36going to be my favorite. I don't like it. It's like a weird sweetness that just tastes off. We're so
04:43close to
04:43having a good bacon here. Texture is great. You got to make it work to like break it apart. It
04:49has a
04:49little more thickness to it. The thicker it is the more I'm going to be able to taste those flavors.
04:54It's got a chewier texture. It's in my mouth longer. Fat to meat ratio is pretty good. In the meat
05:00world we
05:00always say like fat is flavor. If there's anything that these animals are eating that nuance is not going
05:06into the muscle itself. It's going into the fat. This is definitely marketed as the expensive premium
05:14bacon. Peter Luger. I know they do with the cut bacon but I've never had it. My god. Peter Luger.
05:20Nailed it. They're gonna kill me. Peter Luger's is a steakhouse. It's in Brooklyn. They're known for
05:26slabs of bacon you're buying as just a side side of bacon. They're not making this themselves. This is
05:32co-packed in a big factory. I'm starting to say I don't think they're doing a good job with this.
05:38With ingredient lists the order they're in is telling you the greatest percentage. Obviously pork
05:43is going to be number one. The number two I would like to see is salt. But the number two
05:47on this
05:48is water. That means one is wet brined. It doesn't say smoked. Maybe they are confident in the fact that
05:56like they don't need the smoke. Maybe that was traditionally how they did it. I love the texture. I love
06:01that
06:02it is thick cut. The flavor something's off man. Something's off. This could be better.
06:09Applegate Naturals. Sunday bacon. This is the thinnest slice that I've seen at this point.
06:15Not a good sign. I swear to god I'm actually holding up a slice of bacon right now. You might
06:18not be able to see it. That's probably 70% fat. That's a lot of fat. But it's going to
06:23be almost
06:23completely rendered because it's so thin. I would call this buffet bacon. This would be a really good
06:31example of a horrible bacon. It's very unbalanced flavor. There's saltiness. There's not a lot of
06:36sweetness. There's no smoke. There's no real flavor. The texture's not great. It's just like falling
06:41apart. There's this kind of like grittiness. It's like eating dirt. It's really salty. I would say
06:47after like two slices you'd be like I need something to drink. The smell is off-putting to me. This
06:52really
06:52a small amount of lean meat. It's going to cure so fast. And that's what's definitely happened here.
06:58This is a low tier bacon. Oh my god. Oh Applegate. This is supposed to be the good one?
07:04Come on. Are you serious? You're telling me that I like Oscar Mayer Wiener bacon more than Applegate.
07:11It's uncured sundae bacon. Apparently sundae bacon sucks. Somebody must have had really bad sundaes for that
07:18to be their sundae bacon. So this is saying it's uncured bacon but that is false. It is cured bacon.
07:25If it's bacon it's cured. If it's not cured well you got a piece of roast pork belly. It means
07:31that
07:31they're using cultured celery powder. Which has more parts per million of sodium nitrite
07:38than actual sodium nitrite. It's doing the exact same thing. It's just a way to not use sodium nitrite and
07:45not have what reads as like a chemical in your ingredients list because we all know celery is
07:50natural. But it still performs the same function. There's no legality around saying uncured like that.
07:56Cane sugar. Now sugar is cool again if we say cane. This is just like very buzzword forward. No
08:02antibiotics ever. Which you're going to see on a lot of packages. And by the way they're not legally
08:07allowed to add antibiotics. That just means they're following the law. Without the packaging
08:14I didn't like it. And with the packaging I don't like it even more. This is one of the more
08:19like
08:20premium and by premium I mean expensive bacons on the market. I would have expected better. Better
08:25off eating Oscar Mayer than this. And I shouldn't be saying that as a chef.
08:34Classic piece of bacon. It's a little thin for my liking. So there's not going to be a lot of
08:39texture
08:39going on. But I like the ridges which means it shrank somewhat because of the there was
08:45good fat in it. When it gets all like squiggly there was a lot of fat and obviously that gets
08:50melted and it kind of compresses the proteins and the fat together. I'm not smelling any smoke. I'm not
08:55smelling a lot of complexity of flavor. I sound like a diva right now. It's not very good. But
09:03it's well balanced. It's a salty bacon. Tiny bit of smoke in there. The fat doesn't have any pop
09:09to it because again it's so thin it's all been like basically cooked out. It's chewy. It's not as
09:14crispy as I would think it would be for like the thinness that it is. It's a little more fatty
09:19for
09:19my liking. Is this Jimmy Dean? That's my boy Jimmy. Yeah. Jimmy Dean. Jimmy baby! Growing up in Texas I
09:27would
09:27associate Jimmy Dean with like growing up in breakfast more than I would like Oscar
09:32Meyer. They're owned by Hillshire and who owns Hillshire Tyson's Boots. With the J and the cowboy
09:39boot? Come on. That makes me feel at home. Applewood smoked. I like that they tell you what kind of
09:43wood they use. You see more like hickory smoked and applewood smoked. Applewood is going to be a lot
09:49more milder. I think it's marketing at the end of the day. I don't think that the average consumer is
09:55going to tell the difference. It's either a smoky feeling or it's not. In a world full of bad big
10:01corporate bacons this one's not terrible. This is my American classic. Wish it was thicker. Wish I
10:07enjoyed it more. But I still just love Jimmy Dean. 365 by Whole Foods. Uncured center cut. I'm seeing
10:17layers of you know these fat bands in this. That shows a more complex piece of meat for me. It
10:24cooked
10:24flatter which just looks better. You can tell it's a little bit thicker cut for sure. It's got nice
10:29color to it. Guys we have a good bacon. It's a little salty but I don't mind that. Bacon should
10:36be a little salty. Salt's great. Sugar's good. I wish I had a little more smoke on it. It's slightly
10:42thicker than the last couple we've tried. So it has a little bit of texture. It has a little bit
10:46of
10:46crunch which I like. It's somewhat of the standard of what the meat to fat ratio would be. I could
10:52eat
10:53this bacon. This is a pretty good bacon guys. 365. God damn it. Amazon bacon. 365. It's the Whole
11:01Foods brand. I buy this bacon all the time. This is the one my kids love. Uncured center cut. Smokehouse
11:07bacon. Center cut is just like the center of the pork belly. Who cares if it's center cut? It's a
11:14little bit of a marketing ploy. The whole belly is delicious. Don't buy into the hype. Just enjoy the
11:19bacon. We got water, sea salt, cane sugar. They try to make it seem like it's better for you because
11:25it's sea salt versus just salt or that like instead of sugar it's raw cane sugar. It is uncured. No
11:32nitrates or nitrites added. Except for naturally occurring nitrates in sea salt. So wow wow wow you
11:39can be no preservative free and just have salt on the back and you guess what you still are curing
11:45it
11:45and getting that nice pink color. When you look at this bacon you're looking at a bacon that is
11:50more just like raw pork. Light or like rose pink versus the more pronounced like cured almost like
11:58red pink. This is the first appearance of this label that we're seeing. Animal welfare certified.
12:04That's not a buzzword. It's a legal description that these hogs were raised in accordance with that
12:11law. It basically has to do with the perceived stress of the animals by way of like travel
12:18to the slaughterhouse from the farm and also as they're being raised. I'll hand to them. They're
12:24putting their money where their mouth is at least to some aspects here. Way to go. This one was a
12:29good one.
12:33It's a little thin. It's a little crispy looking. It looks like jerky. The fats aren't really present.
12:39Some drier dark spots. This is breaking apart very easily. Also look at the color on the fat. Almost
12:46like a yellowish brown. This is not a good one. It's not bad. Super salty. It's mostly salt. There's
12:53like a little bit of smoke going on. There's a little bit of flavor. There's no texture at all. As
12:57soon as
12:57you bite into it, it just like becomes like basically a powder. You can see it. It's just too crispy.
13:03This has zero texture. When you're eating bacon, the way it was raised affects texture. I would
13:10imagine this is a CAFO animal, meaning it's like was born inside in a building and it lived a very
13:17short life inside that building before it was converted into bacon. Market pantry. Target brand. Yeah,
13:24it's not good. Sodium phosphate in here is being used to retain moisture. It almost has like a film,
13:32like I almost want to say slimy. That's how you know it's phosphates. It's just another like
13:37safeguard to making sure like you can't get sick eating this. What they're doing when I said they're
13:41they're pumping it up with this stuff is they're selling you water. Moisture is the enemy of like,
13:50you know, the browning effect. It's going to steam more than it caramelizes. This is budget bacon. Let's
13:55be honest. All these bacons are budget vacons. You're just getting enough out of this to be able to call
14:00it
14:00bacon. You're losing flavor and complexity and all the incredible things like smokiness and depth
14:07that we love about a really good bacon. It's like a bacon graveyard. I feel bad for the the hog.
14:14Good and gather. No sugar uncured. This bacon has the worst fat to meat ratio so far. This comes from
14:22the sirloin end of the belly. The reason this is so lean is because this right here and this right
14:29here
14:29are the beginning of the leg muscles that are going to go through the rest of the animal,
14:34which means it's not going to be as flavorful to start with because it doesn't have as much fat.
14:38I got a little thing of smoke going on here, so I like that.
14:43The flavor's not bad. It's balanced, but it could use more salt. It could use more sugar. The smoke's
14:48actually pretty nice on it. Not too crunchy. It's not crumbling in my mouth and falling apart.
14:52There's a little bit of bite. I like the texture. I like that it's a little bit thicker.
14:56It's not overly fatty. I still get that chew of the meat too. With the lean muscles, again,
15:02the salts and the sugars and the smoke aren't really going to be able to like sing you a song.
15:06Whoever made this, whichever company, I'm sure they're using the whole belly,
15:09so it's just a matter of like, this is the package we got. They're a pretty good bacon.
15:12This might be the best one. Good and gather. So this is another Target brand. Much better than the
15:19last one. No sugar has a place. People, they can't have as much sugar. I get it. They need to
15:25have a
15:25product for them. I've never had a bacon with fermented rice extract powder before.
15:30It's creating depth, definitely creating a level of caramelization,
15:34and it's definitely giving it sweetness. The rice malt adds sugars, it says on the back. So there are
15:41naturally occurring sugars. I think I like fermented rice extract powder. Way to go, Target. If you have
15:47to have no sugar, I guess, then this is for you. Trader Joe's uncured apple smoked. This looks good.
15:55We have that blackening around the edges. A little bit of smoke, a little greasy. Noticeable sweetness
16:02off this one for the aroma. This is okay. Very sweet. Not a lot of salt. It's not balanced. Bigger
16:11smoke
16:11flavor on this one than almost all the other ones. Texture is pretty good. Chewy. It's a lot of fat.
16:16I mean, part of me wants to say it's maple. It doesn't have like the depth that I would get
16:23from like brown sugar. Something's going on here. I wish it was saltier, but the smoke's great.
16:29The texture's great. I like the thickness. Thumbs up. That's okay. Trader Joe's applewood smoked uncured
16:36bacon. Applewood smoke. Sure. Sounds good. I don't really taste anything. It's usually a lighter smoke.
16:42So that's the first time we're seeing sodium lactate. Anytime you see an acid, there's a preservation
16:47value. They're trying to drop the pH levels. Probably trying to add a layer of complexity
16:52to the flavor as well. I'm not really a fan. I don't recommend this. Oscar Mayer, fully cooked original.
17:00Very thin. Kind of looks like it's going to be like crispy, but then it becomes foldable. That's not what
17:05you
17:05want. You want it to kind of like stand at attention. Have some self-respect. This screams continental
17:10breakfast. I think we found my least favorite. Salt to sugar feels like it's balanced here.
17:16Everything's like just there. I mean, it's not good. That's for sure. I do taste some smoke on this.
17:23The texture's bad. I don't know whose idea it was to cut this so thin, being so fatty. I'm pretty
17:30sad right
17:30now. There's something off for sure. I know what this is. It's Oscar Mayer, already cooked bacon.
17:36Oscar Mayer, fully cooked bacon. Have bacon anytime, any day, anywhere. The dead giveaway is you get
17:44these little ridges, possibly the reheating process that gives it that quality. Microwave on high until
17:50warm or to desired crispiness. It is so thin that in the microwave, it will fry itself crispy with just
18:00the fat on its own skin. Like why are you buying fully cooked bacon? The only way I can think
18:05is if you're a five-year-old living on your own. It is interesting to note though that Oscar Mayer,
18:12out of all of these, has the aroma of smokier bacon. It is 100% real bacon. What else would
18:19it be? The most
18:20expensive baking we've tried today. This is America and convenience is expensive. Honestly, my biggest
18:27takeaway from this whole day, I like Oscar Mayer again. We're back.
18:33Wright Brand Hickory Thick Cut. Looks pretty good. It's fatty. I like that. It's thick cut. This has a
18:40good smell to it. Got good fat to it. So, all right, here we go. This is a really good
18:46bacon. High in the
18:47salt. Not a bad thing, except for my state health right now. It's smoky. It's got a little bit more
18:52complexity to it. It's got a little bit more depth. We have a great bacon. The texture's pretty good.
18:57It's holding up. Salty, sweet, crunchy, fatty. This is pretty good. This is a more premium one.
19:04Wright Brand. Bacon the right way. Real wood smoked. Hickory Thick Cook making one and a half pounds.
19:13I like it. This is more of your traditional thick slab. It's not as thick as Peter Luger. It could
19:20be
19:21thicker still. Any guess who's distributing it? It's Tyson made. Oh, God damn it. I take it all back.
19:27This is Tyson's luxury brand. I don't want it to be, but the bacon's pretty good. It is. It doesn't
19:34have a lot of like performative advertising. It's just like, here's bacon. We smoked it with wood.
19:40There's a lot of it in here. What else do I need to know? Really, I would buy this. This
19:45is good.
19:47Appleton Farms. Premium sliced. Hey, we're back to some wavy bacon. All right.
19:52Decent little string of fat in there, but a leaner pig. This one smells sweetness.
19:56It's thin. It's cartoony. It's high in fat. It's center cut. Just crumbled in my hands. This has
20:02all of the features we know to be of a cheap, not good bacon.
20:09It tastes as sweet as it smells. Okay, balanced. A little bit of smoke. I just got a burst of
20:16salt with the fat, which is great. So I think the fat is like really essential. It's unfortunate
20:22that it's like pretty, pretty lean. No noticeable, you know, crispiness. It's thin and it dissolves in
20:28your mouth. Bacon shouldn't dissolve in your mouth. I'm not really getting that kind of like rendered,
20:34crisp, creamy fat. One of the main things that I'm looking for when I'm eating bacon.
20:39I'm definitely disappointed. There's a pretty good bacon.
20:43Appleton Farms. Premium sliced bacon. Hardwood smoked.
20:47They sell these at Aldi's. I've never been. Premium means nothing.
20:51It has no definition within the USDA, so you can put it on the label for anything.
20:55It's just marketing. There's nothing premium about this.
21:00Kirkland Signature Hickory Smoked. Got to say, good looking bacon. It's crispy.
21:05I would say a decent meat to fat ratio. It has a well-balanced, slightly smoky smell.
21:12It's not bad. I mean, it's good. We had a good balance of salt and sugar there.
21:17It's got a little bit of complexity. It has a nice light smoke to it. Good texture.
21:21You get that crispiness. It's got bite to it, chew.
21:26A little bit, finally, of that like crunchy creaminess from the fat.
21:31Good quality bacon. I don't have bad things to say about this bacon.
21:35Costco or something like that? Kirkland.
21:38All right. I should have known. Oh, it's Costco.
21:40Oh yeah. Yeah, this is a pretty solid bacon.
21:43As far as commercial big brand bacons go, it's pretty good.
21:48Yeah, it's pretty good. This is nice. They did a good job.
21:52Smithfield, cherry with smoked. It's a little greasy.
21:55Can you smell the smoke coming off of it?
21:59No, I don't like this bacon. Not ideal.
22:02This isn't as balanced. There's not a lot of flavor.
22:05The smoke is actually the most pronounced thing here.
22:07It just feels like something's added there.
22:09A little bit cardboardy. A lot of chewiness on this.
22:13Fat to meat ratio is not good. So it's got to be like 80% fat right there. It's nuts.
22:20But you can kind of like separate the protein layers like down the middle with the fat layer.
22:25And that one's got to be Smithfield, right? Hey, Smithfield is, I think, supposed to be our
22:31largest pork producer. Old heritage company. Then slowly piece by piece bought by a Chinese company.
22:38They are the worst. The bacon sucks now.
22:43Cherry wood smoked. It has that like kind of sweeter taste to it.
22:47Dumb to say it's a fruitier wood, but it is.
22:50Just like apple wood, these fruitier woods, they're supposed to be a little bit softer,
22:56a little bit more fruity, obviously.
22:57It's going to lend a sweetness to the end product.
23:01This one does say it's thick cut. It's not really what I would consider like a thick cut bacon.
23:06There's just no world where that's thick cut.
23:08When we talk about like the problems with like commercialized farming in the world,
23:12Tyson, Smithfield, this is them. Don't buy this stuff.
23:16It's not bad. I'm not a huge fan.
23:20Jamestown brand. Hardwood smoked.
23:23Some weird irregular slices, but I'm not angry about it.
23:26The more manicured something looks, it feels unnatural.
23:30This looks like what I would want to eat if I hadn't eaten so much bacon already.
23:37It's good. Salt and sugar are balanced here.
23:39I'm getting a little bit of smoke. It doesn't have a lot of complexity to it.
23:43It's crispy. It's chewy.
23:45You know, we're getting closer to that creamy, crisp texture.
23:50This might be my favorite texture of any of the bacons we've tried.
23:53Definitely a little on the fatty side.
23:54Good fat.
23:55This is sandwich bacon to me. It will keep its crunch.
23:58It's got, you know, big wavy curls on it. That's right.
24:03Jamestown brand.
24:04Oh, what do you know?
24:05It's made in Smithfield, Virginia.
24:07It's definitely budget.
24:08It's so budget that they make you like read upside down if you want to turn it.
24:12You know this is good when it's misprinted on the back and it's upside down.
24:19We have to flip this over.
24:20Package may contain irregular slices.
24:22These guys are taking the ends and oddball slices of bacon.
24:27Probably from a more prestigious line selling it to you at the dollar store.
24:33And I'm on board.
24:35You don't know what wood they're smoking it with.
24:38There's probably a little bit of both in the package.
24:41To me would mostly mean oak.
24:43I've never seen may contain sugar on a pack before.
24:46Like they're giving themselves some latitude that it might not have any sugar at all.
24:50I think that this one does have a little bit of brown sugar.
24:53It's interactive.
24:54You can lift the flaps to view.
24:57It's like one of those pop-up books.
24:59This whole product is crazy unhinged to me.
25:03The more I think about this, the more I love it.
25:07I irregularly like it.
25:08You never know what you're going to get, you know, so it's a surprise.
25:11It's kind of like the blind box of bacon.
25:15Great value. Hickory smoked.
25:17We're back to the thin cut.
25:19The brittle bacon.
25:21Noticeably crispier.
25:22You can even hear it.
25:25It's a little too crunchy.
25:27I feel like, yeah, it's going to shatter.
25:29It's brittle.
25:31It's not good.
25:32Salt's there and not much else.
25:34It just tastes kind of chemically.
25:36Might be crispy to a fault.
25:37And there's no real like texture or chew to it.
25:40It's brittle, so it just like doesn't feel that great to eat it.
25:43It's too fatty and too crunchy and it sort of breaks the part of your mouth.
25:47And it comes off his lower end to be honest.
25:49Great value.
25:51Great value.
25:52That's the Walmart brand.
25:53This is the lowest dollar price per pound out of everything we're tasting.
25:58If you're okay with, you know, eating factory pig, factory bacon,
26:03then it would be a great value.
26:05This isn't good.
26:08Applegate Organics.
26:09Hickory smoked turkey bacon.
26:11This is like mean spirited.
26:12This is fake bacon.
26:14This is turkey bacon.
26:15Ground glued turkey that is then cured and artificially flavored to resemble the flavor of bacon.
26:26Yeah, I know what it is.
26:27I shouldn't like it.
26:28It's actually not terrible.
26:30It's not great.
26:31It doesn't have that same good feeling that like you get when you're eating a good piece of bacon.
26:36Is the salt and sugar balanced?
26:38Sure.
26:38I would assume it has to be turkey.
26:40It looks like a denser musculature than chicken.
26:44So I'm kind of curious.
26:45What am I eating?
26:47Okay.
26:48It's Applegate Organics uncured turkey bacon.
26:52That makes more sense.
26:53No, it's cute.
26:54The barn is the barcode.
26:55It's the barn code.
26:56You're not going to get a crispy outside on this because there's no fat to cook it.
27:00So it's just always going to be kind of like a soft texture, which is unfortunate.
27:05I wouldn't really call this bacon.
27:07It's not a terrible alternative to me.
27:08It's just, it's not really in the same category.
27:11It doesn't look that appealing.
27:13And if I want bacon, I kind of just want pork bacon because it's yummy.
27:17I mean, the ingredients are similar to the first Applegate.
27:22Their pork bacon sucks, but their turkey bacon, pretty good.
27:28Now let's see which bacon our experts liked the most and the least.
27:33My favorite today, surprisingly, it was the Oscar Mayer.
27:36Oscar Mayer.
27:38What the hell, man?
27:39It doesn't mean that it had the best flavor.
27:42It didn't mean that it had the best texture.
27:44But I feel like it had the best combination of all of that.
27:49The salt and sugar was balanced.
27:52The smoke level was there.
27:55You stayed true to who you are.
27:56You're still rocking the wiener car.
27:59And honestly, as an added perk, your crazy microwavable one, I'm into it.
28:04The whole foods center cut bacon that I'm used to cooking at home is actually one of my favorites.
28:10Just perfectly salty, sweet, smoky, really well balanced.
28:13It's a great bacon.
28:14They were the only ones that didn't, you know, label uncured bacon,
28:18but actually have celery powder in the back.
28:20That's impressive.
28:21The Kirkland had a really good flavor.
28:24It had a good aroma.
28:25I don't dabble in a lot of Costco products.
28:30I understand now why so many people swear by them.
28:33Another one that I was really surprised about.
28:36Target, good and gather.
28:37You labeled it no sugar.
28:39You weren't lying about it.
28:40There was no added cane sugars or anything like that.
28:44You had vinegar in there.
28:46You had the fermented rice in there.
28:48Smart alternatives that add a little bit more complexity.
28:52Someone deserves a raise in that R&D team.
28:55There were some bacons that I did not like.
28:57The Applegate was the worst of all of the bacons that I tried.
29:01Which honestly, I was kind of shocked by.
29:03Applegate really seemed to go to extremes to try to make you feel safe and make you feel comfortable.
29:09You were supposed to be the large box store, natural, gourmet alternative to all the Borshead processed meats of the
29:18world.
29:18But man, that was bad bacon, really brittle.
29:22It was lacking in flavor, aroma, and like eating bacon dust.
29:27No real smoke.
29:28Probably worst of all, it costs a lot.
29:30When your turkey bacon is better than your pork bacon, we got problems.
29:34The Market Pantry from Target, it literally shattered like glass all over this table.
29:41Proteins are not supposed to do that.
29:43It was completely inedible.
29:45There was no good aroma from it.
29:48It looked bad.
29:50The flavor was substantially lacking and it was like eating dust.
29:57Bacon was not created in America, but it's like pizza.
30:00We have taken it. It is ours. It is a fundamental, perfect food.
30:05I don't think a lot of other foods get to live in that space of like, even when you're bad,
30:10you're still pretty good.
30:12I think that it's important to remember that brand names have the reputations that they have for a reason.
30:19Is it the best product? Absolutely not.
30:21But it is definitely the most consistent product.
30:23If you want something really, really, really good, my advice to you,
30:28don't get at a big grocery store.
30:30Get something that respects the history and art form of bacon and what makes it delicious.
30:36I've only felt my chest tighten once around number seven.
30:41Why am I not wearing a heart monitor right now?
30:43I should be, there should be a doctor on site at least for this,
30:46to just like shake their head and shame.
30:48The crazy thing about this journey is that my dad was a Jewish cardiologist.
30:54I'm being serious.