Love it, loathe it or live for it, meat's been on a lot of minds these days.

A recent study found that red meat consumption increases the overall risk of mortality. And even though swine flu is not transmissible through pork products (duh), it wasn't exactly a publicity boon for the other white meat, either. Even the beloved bacon has been taking a beating. One writer went so far as to declare an end to Baconmania, proclaiming that "Our Long Coronary Nightmare Is Almost Over."

Meat, needless to say, isn't going down without a fight. Aside from the expected army of industry lobbyists covering its (fat)back, it's got plenty of product tie-in love. There's these plush toys from Sweet Meats, so cute they could bring a smile to even a vegetarian's face. There's Meatcards, the beef jerky business cards that recently took the Internet by storm.

And, standing boldly in the face of the bacon backlash, there's Heather Lauer's "Bacon: A Love Story." Subtitled "A Salty Survey of Everyone's Favorite Meat," it includes profiles of bacon-loving chefs across the country, recipes for such delicacies as bacon-jalapeno pizza and bacon Bloody Marys, and tips for creating your own cure. Clearly, Lauer isn't writing bacon's obituary. And if anything can help meat get its groove back, its a 100 percent recycled fleece T-bone.

MEAT CARDS: BUSINESS CARDS MADE FROM MEAT AND LASERS.

We love a direct marketing approach. "Meat Cards" -- pure beef jerky etched with your information using lasers (sorry, "a 150 WATT CO2 LASER") -- take off where the bacon explosion, flaming bacon lance of death and meat art stop.

Why should you care? Because they'll "retain value after the econopocalypse," of course: "Hoard and barter your calorie-rich, life-sustaining cards." Bust these suckers out at the next Bar Association meeting or snack on them when stuck on the subway.

Follow the meatheads' Twitter to find out when to avail yourself of these treasures.

[Via Boing Boing]

You might think that a goofy internet meme about a football-sized lump of bacon might be worth a few blog posts, maybe a newspaper article about all the blog posts, then a swift plunge into the cold outer darkness where D-list reality TV contestants from 1998 and the band that wrote "Turning Japanese" live in eternity.

Well, according to Eat Me Daily, the creators of the "Bacon Explosion" are instead getting a six-figure book deal. The forthcoming book, "Barbecue Makes Everything Better," is based on the BBQ Addicts website.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars. For the Bacon Explosion. Excuse me, I'll be in the kitchen baking a wedding cake with house-cured lardo icing and candied pancetta roses for my upcoming cookbook "Say it With Pork: 101 All-Pig Recipes for Your Special Day."

What is the deal with bacon lately?

Admittedly, it's not as if the delicious fruit of a smoked pig's belly was ever all that obscure; stlll, over the past few weeks, it has been gaining a fresh, and sometimes repulsive cultural relevance. A little over a month ago, Marisa McClellan covered The Bacon Explosion, a spicy, smoked, barbecue-basted brick of pure pork. Truth be told, the explosion is kind of like a bug zapper: terrifying and vaguely dangerous, yet attractive and deeply compelling. Worse yet, for those of us who don't have a meat smoker, the explosion's creators have put together an oven recipe.

As if this wasn't enough, over on RiffTrax Blog, Michael Nelson has announced his intention to eat nothing but bacon for an entire month. As he has struggled through February, a reader has produced a bacon effigy, dubbed FrankenBacon, to demonstrate the aftereffects of too much pork. For those of us who are sometimes haunted by the ghosts of our meat, FrankenBacon is actually a little scary.

Meanwhile, in my constant quest for the best boutique bonbons in New York City, I recently came across an article about Roni-Sue's Chocolates, a company in New York's Essex Street Market. Although Roni-Sue's carries a wide array of truffles and candies, I was immediately drawn to their pig candy. Basically crispy-fried bacon dipped in chocolate, this hearkens back to the sugar-crusted pig candy that my wife and I used to make.

Meanwhile, I'm getting that old carnival feeling--the same one I have when the halcyon call of the deep fryer draws me in with its promise of batter-fried Oreos and funnel cakes. Must...resist...the call...

Who am I kidding? I'll probably hit Roni-Sue's this weekend. On the bright side, maybe it will make it easier for me to resist the siren song of the Bacon Explosion!

Earlier this week, The Kitchn delighted us by calling Slashfood "the center of all things bacon." In an effort to live up to this title, we bring you The Bacon Explosion (it works best if you imagine a wrestling announcer saying those words in a booming, echo-y fashion).

What is The Bacon Explosion, you ask? It is a creation of Jason at BBQ Addicts and it is a roll of barbecue flavored pork sausage, filled with crispy bacon bits and surrounded by a tightly woven bacon mat. This roll of porky goodness is then smoked and glazed with a sweet sauce. To serve, it gets sliced in rounds and presented (ideally) between two halves of a flaky biscuit.

To see the step-by-step process of how to make your own Bacon Explosion, click here.