TAKING A STRIP OFF THE BACON -- McLEANS ORGANIC PORK BREAKFAST STRIPS
Every time a themed issue of
CityFood has gone to press there follows a forehead smacking period where we think of all the things that should have gone into the issue and didn’t. Since the “Pig Issue� was published we’ve been doing quite a bit of that lately, and now here is an item that really fills us with remorse – the reason we can still eat bacon and sleep soundly at night –
McLean’s Organic Pork Breakfast Strips. A lot of people have a guilt thing going on about bacon. Converts to the church of vegan claim it is one of the things from the old misspent life that you miss the most, and yet a majority of people agree it has to be at least restricted in one’s diet, if not avoided entirely, because 1) it’s sinfully fattening and 2) it's full of nasty chemicals such as nitrates that researchers will tell you, recruit your body for the carcinogenic devils.
But with the McLean product you can worry less because 1) it's particularly lean and 2) it doesn’t have any of those bad additives.
Under the “No’s� file: potassium nitrates and nitrites, dyes, sulphites, phosphates, MSG, sodium nitrate, artificial flavours and the kind of smoke that comes from a bottle.
Under “Yes� file: meat from certified organic, humanely-raised pigs, sea salt, honey, herbs and the natural smoke from burning hickory or alder wood chips.
In fact, if a bacon product could wear a halo, this is the one that would do it. Even the name of the company (after founder and President,
Garth McLean) seems destined to be emblematic for “clean� and “lean�.
But we wondered, with all that virtue, why did the company call the product “breakfast strips�, when many consumers associate that term with vegetable-based substitutes for meat?
McLean’s Vice President of Business Development,
Michelle Nielson, answered our question by explaining that the reason has to do with politics. Said Nielson,�the
Canadian Food Inspection Agency hasn’t changed its language or terminology to correctly define these healthier categories of products. According to their official guidelines, ‘bacon’ means pork belly cured with nitrates. Well, the absence of nitrates is what our meat products are all about, so why would we want to label them that way?�
“It’s the same with the colour�, she adds. “Our breakfast strips product is brownish, not red like most commercial bacon because it is all-natural, not dyed. We could colour it with a healthy dye like beet juice to make it pinker, but why do we want to change a perfectly natural product to make it look more artificial? That’s going about things backwards.
McLean Organic Foods is a small, independent BC company that supplies their bacon strips, turkey strips, chicken wings and other organic turkey, chicken, pork and beef products only within the province to health-minded grocers such as
Capers,
Stong’s Markets,
Spud and others. The stores can sell all everything they can get, because as more people take an interest in the quality of their food and the long term effects of diet on their health, the demand for organic meat products is rising dramatically.
“Everyone is looking for these kinds of products,� says Neilson. “We get calls from all over the world. This morning I took a call all the way from Australia. But we prefer to keep our production facilities small and manageable. In the future, we may expand to national distribution, but for now, we are serving the home market first.
McLean is open to communication from the public. All company principles have their names, email and phone numbers listed on their website at
http://www.mcleanorganicfoods.com/meatus/index.php and if you call them, they answer their phones themselves.
Like their breakfast strips, there is something very natural and trustworthy about that. It just is, what it is.
