“Hey, Bacon Girl!”

So this was my life now; new school where no one but my few friends knew me as anything but “Bacon Girl.” It was a well-earned and accurate title. Every day at 10:15 _AM, we had a snack break. In order to promote healthy eating, my school called it “fruit break.” My snack? Bacon. To be precise: Five strips of crispy, just-cooked-that- morning, glorious bacon in a Ziploc bag.

Children would crowd around me, begging like starving dogs, the smell driving them mad with hunger. After all, bacon is known as the commoner’s crack.

Bacon can be a powerful weapon used to unite people together in a sense of brotherhood or to destroy once seemingly unbreakable bonds in an instant. Such influence in the hands of a shy and nameless pre-teen girl can only end in complete and utter corruption.

I would pit them against each other, and they willingly played my game. They’d crouch before me, offering their Pop-Tarts or Rice Krispy Treats. But my disdainful looks prompted more creative offers: help with Pre-Algebra, invitations to birthday parties, and even promises of friendship. Of course, I knew one day that the reign of my bacon-fueled tyranny would come to a brutal and fateful end. However, I didn’t realize until this year that bacon that would inevitably corrupt not just my soul but also my body.

I was scrolling down my Facebook newsfeed when I encountered an alarming and earthshattering article. Bacon is apparently linked to cancer, which essentially equals a death sentence for me and millions of other bacon addicts. According to a group of 22 scientists from the World Health Organization, regular consumption of red and processed meat heightens the risk of colorectal cancer. Eating bacon regularly now is in considered on the same tier as tobacco and asbestos in terms of possible cancer risk. The scientists claim that this life-threatening danger can be combatted. “Consuming a healthy diet with an emphasis on plant foods and limiting consumption of processed meat and red meat,” stated Susan Gapstur of the American Cancer Society.

Really, bacon is on par with tobacco? Asbestos? Are we at risk of harm from second-hand bacon aroma? Will we need special suits for bacon abatement? I seriously doubt such outlandish claims based on this pseudoscience. This is not about the risk of cancer from excessive bacon consumption, it’s a war on our right to keep and bear bacon. Are we as Americans willing to sacrifice our bacon, a food truly reflective of the American spirit, for our health? For our lives? What is truly at risk is our liberty to die bye our own hands and on our own terms.

Next thing we know, the Surgeon General will put health-warning labels on all of the packages of bacon: “Caution: Bacon Eating May Be Hazardous to Your Health.” No one wants to be confronted by their own mortality every time they make an Applewood-smoked BLT. That time is for when you stay up until four in the morning drunk on Ambien and watching the Independent films section on Netflix.

This assault on bacon won’t stayed confined to humans. Next the WHO will pressure the FTC to remove Beggin Strips commercials from the airwaves for deceptive advertising. Bacon as a treat for your favorite pooch? You might as well give that dog a pack of cigarettes.

This crisis must be stopped before it is too late. I call upon my fellow Americans to write to World Health Organization and the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service to call off this war on bacon. As a U.S. citizen, you are constitutionally entitled to your bacon, regardless of the despicable slander the WHO spews out. Please, stand up for your liberty. Defend your bacon.