Aporkalypse Now: Preparing for the Bacon Shortage

Stop wasting bacon on art!

If you are not already seated, you might want to sit down for this: the top news this morning is a pending worldwide shortage of bacon due to drought in the Midwest and West. We’ll give you a moment to deal with your emotions.

There. Are you calm now? Good. Here’s the good news: there’s no reason to panic, because we here at RSM are prepared to help you get through this tragic time. There may be nothing you can do about the weather, but there are steps you can take to prepare for the coming aporkalypse.

1. Promote Religious Tolerance

It goes without saying that a Real Southern Man should always be a gentleman despite the religious beliefs (or lack thereof) of those around him. But we’re talking about taking it to the next level. It’s time to set aside your personal feelings and actively proselytize on behalf of Judaism and Islam. There is no surer way to bring down worldwide pork demand than to send folks running to the Torah or the Koran.

If you’re uncomfortable with this, here’s how your conversations might go: “Hi, I was wondering if you’ve ever thought about accepting Jesus Christ as your lord and savior. No? Good, you don’t want to go down the path of those bacon-eaters, with all their Sandy Patty music and clogged arteries. Could I interest you in some Judaism or Islam, then? There’s nothing quite like being a part of the oldest religious conflict on earth. It’s just like football in Alabama, you have to pick a side.”

See? Easy.

(Photo credit: Alex E. Proimos)

2. Embrace Veggie Bacon

Whoa, whoa, whoa! What!? The only vegetarianism most bacon lovers embrace is the kind that lands a vegetarian cow on their backyard barbecue.

We know; veggie bacon is not very good. In fact, I had a friend who for several years was a “vegetarian*” with an asterisk. The asterisk was for one item: bacon. He didn’t eat burgers, fish, chicken or pepperoni on his pizza. But he ate bacon. Why? Because veggie bacon is just that bad.

However, if you want to make sure your supply of bacon isn’t exhausted, you’ve got to push others to eat those bland, tasteless veggie strips with their painted-on fat stripes.

Not only does encouraging veggie bacon consumption lower global bacon demand, purchasing it yourself can also work in your favor.

Here’s how it could work: go to a friend’s house for dinner. Take a dish made with veggie bacon. While all the other guests are busy scrambling for something, anything to wash away the hideous non-flavor of your dish, you sneak into to the kitchen and steal the host’s bacon. You may not have any friends once this is all over, but desperate times …

(This strategy will also work with turkey bacon.)

Bagels topped with tomatoes and a side of two Morningstar Veggie Bacon Strips. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

3. Put it in Deep Freeze

Invest now in a good chest or upright freezer. Don’t freeze the bacon, though. Frozen bacon is terrible. No, stock the freezer with steaks. You can use them later to barter for bacon. After all, a steak that isn’t wrapped in bacon is just meaningless meat.

FREEZE Logo1 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

4. Become Mr. Clean and Crocodile Dundee

When stores run low on bacon or prices get out of hand, it’s time to embrace your Southern sense of self-reliance. So shave your head and grab a blade, because if there’s one thing we learned from Lost, it’s that a bald guy with a big knife can bag a lot of wild pork.

Locke (LOST) (Photo credit: filthysize)

5. Prepare for the Worst

Should the worst happen and we face the dark specter of bacon rationing or, even worse, outright bacon outages, you need to prepare yourself for widespread social unrest.

As loyal RSM readers, we expect you’ve already exercised your 2nd Amendment rights and have the ability to protect yourselves. However, we must remind you that, even in the worst of times, a RSM is a gentleman. Always. We can’t stress this strongly enough: it is never okay to kill for bacon … except the hog, of course.

Is it okay to maim for bacon? Well, that’s a bit of a grey area …

In the spirit of self-reliance, you might even want to take up a little hog farming. As the old saying goes, there’s no bacon like home bacon. Okay, it’s not an old saying. It’s a new saying. We just made it up. But we’re pretty sure it’s going to catch on. Let us know if you want a t-shirt.