We’ve all heard about ‘the patch’ to aid smoking cessation. Stick it to your arm and it releases nicotine into the bloodstream to help you handle your cravings while trying to quit. Now, a Plant-based Food company is launching the first Bacon Patch, to help folks kick the Meat habit…
Pro boxer and Love Island runner-up Tommy Fury swears by the Bacon Patch…
Going Vegan is hard to do
“We know cutting down your meat consumption is hard. But cutting it out altogether? That’s seriously hard – in fact, 56% of people who have tried have failed in the first four to five weeks. So, to help you get through these tough last weeks of January, we’ve created the world’s first scratch and sniff meat patch. Just stick it on your arm and give it a rub to release a sizzlingly delicious bacon aroma any time you’re feeling in need of a meat-hit,” the Instagram launch post declares.
This patch doesn’t release anything into your body. It apparently relies on the scratch and sniff principle. Working with Oxford University Professor Charles Spence, an expert in sensory perception and the relation between our mind and senses of smell and taste, creator Strong Roots developed a patch it says will make you think you’re eating Bacon when you’re really eating Sweet Potato Fries or Quinoa.
“Our sense of smell is strongly connected to our ability to taste. Therefore, experiencing food-related cues such as smelling a bacon aroma, can lead us to imagine the act of eating that food,” Spence told The Telegraph. “Imagine eating enough bacon and you might find yourself sated.”
Strong Roots decided to embark on the Bacon Patch R&D trail after a national UK poll revealed the opportunity: “A study of 2,000 adults found that between cigarettes, Alcohol and Meat, Meat is the hardest to give up,” said Strong Roots founder Samuel Dennigan.
Does it work?
Strong roots says, ‘Yes’ – for most folks at least. It’s currently running a market test for the new product in the UK. And the Bacon Patch has at least one high-profile spokesperson in its corner already. Tommy Fury, a pro boxer and runner-up on the reality TV show Love Island last year, has declared himself a fan and is currently modelling the patch fort Strong Roots.
But there are those who fear wearing a Bacon patch will only make them want to eat more Bacon.
“If I can smell bacon I’ll want to eat bacon – it’s very simple,” construction company boss Graham Innes of St. Albans, Hertfordshire told The Telegraph. “I’m not going to be satisfied with a cheese sandwich when I can smell bacon coming from the patch. It might work for some, but it would never work for me. I’d be down the nearest café for a bacon roll.”
My take
I fear the Bacon Patch will come across as just a novelty at best, even though scientific studies have shown that the aroma of a food can reduce one’s craving for it. I can accept that the theory may work in the lab, but will it fly ‘in the wild’?
One way or the other, the Bacon Patch user will need to crave quitting Meat very strongly to succeed in going vegan, just like smokers have to be fully committed to kicking that habit for the nicotine patch to help them at all.
I say, “Good luck!’ to Strong Roots in its quest to help wannabe Vegans reach their goal of dropping meat from their diets altogether. But, as I said a few lines ago, I think the Bacon Patch will go down in history books as a flash-in-the-pan curiosity.
~ Maggie J.