This Is The Least Healthy Way To Cook Bacon

It's hard to overstate the country's love affair with bacon. It's eaten in millions of households across the country, and the average American consumes more than 18 pounds of the product annually, either at home or in restaurants where bacon burgers, club sandwiches, and even Bloody Marys garnished with bacon feature on the menu (via Annapolis Discovered). There's even a United Church of Bacon in Las Vegas, which boasts more than 10,000 congregants (via South Florida Reporter). Everything from chips to crackers to cotton candy has been made in a bacon-flavored variety (via USA Today). 

Because it's not a particularly healthy thing to eat, many people have tried to determine the best way to cook bacon so that they can enjoy their favorite meat product without suffering the consequences health-wise. Lots of ideas have been floated to try and make the preparation of bacon healthy, but you don't often see suggestions about the least healthy way to prepare bacon, but it can be good to know that so you can try to avoid doing it next time you tackle a package.

Nearly 70 percent of bacon's calories come from fat (via HuffPost). However, the longer the bacon is cooked, more of the fat (the white part of the meat) turns into liquid bacon grease. Bacon starts to crisp up when most of the fat has rendered into its liquid form. 

Many people lay the bacon fresh out of the pan onto paper towels to absorb the oil so that they're not needlessly consuming additional amounts of fat and calories. An alternative method you might see if you're not looking to waste paper towels is laying the bacon on a wire rack over a baking pan to let the oil drip off. 

So, to sum up, the unhealthiest way to cook bacon is by cooking it for a short period of time, so that much of the fat remains in the meat rather than in liquid form in the pan, and then not using paper towels (or a wire rack) to drain the excess grease.