Started today! October 13th

Well the blood tests are back and this is my starting point:

Cholesterol 164 mg/dL

HDL  48 mg/dL

Triglycerides 54mg/dL

Trig/HDL ratio 1.12

Fasting Insulin 6.8 uIU/ml

HOMA-IR 1.6

HbA1c 4.9%

hsCPR 1.80 mg/dL

Weight 238 lbs

Lots of questions to answer:

1. How many pounds of bacon will I need to eat a day?
2. How much less is the cooked weight for the pre-cooked weight?
3.  Is the nutritional panel of the back of the package for the pre-cooked or cooked product?
4. What is the best way to cook back?
5. How will I manage keeping this 28 day bacon experiment up while traveling?
6. How many rolls of paper towels will I go through?
7. How many times will I set off the smoke alarm?

The first batch:

I usually don’t eat breakfast in the morning but break my overnight fast sometime around noon or later. Started the day as usual with a teaspoon of salt in my pot of coffee.

First pound of bacon was from Farmland. Classic Cut Naturally Hickory Smoked. 

Starting weight was 1.01 lbs. I set the oven to 400⁰F but wanted to check with my digital thermometer. It said 452^oF ! So now I need to check the digital thermometer:

In boiling water 211^oF

In an ice water bath 32⁰F

Barometric pressure was 30.42 inches

So I think the digital thermometer is pretty close but I will definitely have to watch the oven temp.

Decide to try two different baking methods. 1.) on a raised grid  2.) on parchment paper.

After about 20 minutes of cooking time I removed the bacon on the parchment paper because it looked done but had to let the raised grid tray in an additional 5 minutes. It still wasn’t as done as the first tray on the parchment paper. Is that because the bacon on the parchment paper cooked in its own fat or because it was on the bottom rack? Thinking the former but will figure that out later.    The digital thermometer never went above 370^oF.

 

 

So this was lunch….

And here is the math:

• 1.01 lbs pre-cook weight

0.421 lbs post-cook weight

0.261 lbs bacon dripping collected (about 100ml)

Where did the other 0.328 pounds go? Water?

Really preferred the bacon cooked on the parchment paper the best. Finished eating around 2pm.

Here is the nutritional value per the back panel:

Serving size: 2 pieces (are you kidding me? Who eats two pieces of bacon?)

So for the entire package:

Calories 560        Calories from Fat 400

Total Fat 48 g

Saturated Fat 16 g

Cholesterol 160mg

Sodium 2,560mg

Carbs 0

Protein 32g

Was hungry again by 4 pm. So cooking one pound at a time isn’t going to work for me.

Start the next batch. This time I used some Stew Leonard’s low sodium bacon. LOW SODIUM? That was me not paying attention. Cooked it up all on parchment paper.  The texture and crispness was fine but it could have used some salt. Go figure.

 

 

Nutritional value the entire package: (Funny that this serving size was 3 slices)

 

 

 

 

 

Totals for the package:

Calories  420       Calories from Fat 270
Total Fat 30 g
Saturated Fat 12 g
Cholesterol 30 mg
Sodium  1,080 mg
Carbs 0
Protein 30g

I understand the difference in the sodium but why the difference in everything else?

 

Well… now I feel full.