If Bacon’s Good, Schmacon’s Better [Video]

I don't think I'm surprising anyone when I tell you that healthy options for bacon have a less than stellar track record.

Turkey bacon is dry and rubbery and tofu bacon is a giant fail. I would rather give up bacon than to eat either of those impostors.

So when I heard of schmacon, a beef alternative with less calories, lower sodium and saturated fat than pork bacon, my ears perked up.

Chef Howard Bender decided that turkey bacon sucks and began experimenting with a lower fat lean beef version of the famed pork product.

What he came up with was "great-tasting, crispy, seasoned, smoky and satisfying strips of beef that could make folks happily pass over pork bacon" according to his Kickstarter page, which is attempting to find $50,000 to fund to distribute Schmacon to supermarkets nationwide, The Chicaogo Tribune reported.

Currently, Schmacon is only available to restaurants.

"Schmacon has a much more 'jump out at you flavor' when you taste it side by side with normal bacon," Bender told DNAinfo Chicago. "You get all the flavors of beef, but it can be very crispy, and you get more lean versus fat."

But how does it taste to someone not involved financially in the project? Erin McCarther, a writer at Mental Floss gave it a try:

... while Schmacon doesn’t taste that much like pork bacon, it is delicious, smoky-sweet and full of flavor (so full of flavor, in fact, that it brought to mind an easy-to-eat beef jerky). I inhaled it and left all but one piece of the pork bacon in the pan."