Bacon satisfies on many levels. It’s smoky, salty, meaty, slightly sweet, and crispy — unless it’s only lightly cooked, and then it’s just deliciously, unctuously fatty. It’s an indulgent pleasure, a food that always seems a little sinful — which, of course, only adds to its appeal. 

We’re talking conventional American-style bacon here, as opposed to the leaner back bacon the Brits favor (which is more like Canadian bacon, but with a bit more fat). Our kind of bacon is basically cured and/or smoked pork belly, sometimes with black pepper or herbs added to its exterior, traditionally cut into long, thin strips, and fried, so that we eat it as part of our morning meal. Bacon may be delicious, but it is not the most healthful of foods. Here are the 50 least healthful fast food breakfast items.

Bacon is also one of those foods that has an absolutely distinctive, unmistakable flavor — and of course, an irresistible aroma. This aroma, in which more than 150 compounds have been identified, can more or less be successfully mimicked by food scientists. 

As Advanced Biotech, a company that manufactures raw materials to the flavor and fragrance industry, puts it, “Fortunately for flavor creation teams, bacon is a relatively easy flavor to replicate.” That fact, of course, has given rise to the phenomenon of bacon-flavored everything. It’s reminiscent of the way food producers have used a quintessential fruit of summer, giving us toothpaste, rum, Oreos, and 17 other things flavored with watermelon.

Click here for 20 bacon-flavored foods the world doesn’t need.

A surprising number of “bacon-flavored” foods aren’t made with real bacon, and many are even vegan — among them Ritz Bacon Crackers, Jim Beam Bacon Mustard, and Kettle Brand Maple Bacon Potato Chips. 

How do you give something bacon flavor without meat? Through the magic of chemistry. One example is Olive Nation’s Natural Bacon Flavor, a substance sold as an additive to various foods. It contains “Bacon Flavor (autolyzed yeast extract, sorbitol, hydrolyzed soy protein), lipolyzed butter oil (milk), natural smoke flavor, soy lecithin, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil (soybean and/or cottonseed), natural flavors and mixed tocopherols.”

The creativity of the food-centered scientific community and the product development teams who work for big food companies is to be admired. And a hint of bacon in some non-bacon products is a. But some bacon-flavored products just plain have no reason to live. They take bacon where it doesn’t belong.