Sigmund Freud's Strange Connection To Bacon And Egg Breakfasts

Here's a fun fact for those of you who enjoy bacon and eggs for breakfast — this hearty first meal of the day has a strange connection to Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. It turns out that Freud's nephew, Edward L. Bernays, was the pioneer of public relations (PR). Using Freudian techniques and help from thousands of physicians, Barnays ran a masterful PR campaign to convince Americans to eat more bacon and eggs for breakfast. 

Before Bernays' campaign to help sell more bacon to the public, the typical American breakfast around the 1920s was simple and lighter: Toast, juice, and coffee. And it wasn't fancy toast, like our milk bread French toast recipe or sourdough avocado toast, just plain white bread, toasted, and buttered. 

Now let's dive into the details of that promotional campaign. After reading Freud's writings on group thought, Bernays worked out who the public might be influenced by in favor of eating more bacon. He turned to physicians for his answer, asking thousands of them if they recommended heartier breakfasts over lighter ones. The majority said yes, heartier breakfasts (including cured meats like bacon and eggs) would be better because people's nutrients would be depleted overnight, apparently. Bernay used these results as the backbone of his campaign to promote bacon and eggs for breakfast. His "study" appeared in newspapers nationwide, shifting public opinion on what constitutes an all-American breakfast. And thus, we Americans have been forever manipulated into thinking that a plate of bacon and eggs is the breakfast of champions.

PR campaigns and studies that change the public's opinions on what foods are good or bad for the body are all too common. For example, after The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) coined the term Chinese Restaurant Syndrome, a racist myth emerged linking monosodium glutamate (MSG) to negative health effects, unfairly stigmatizing Asian cuisine.  

And do you remember the Got Milk? campaign of the 1990s? Celebrities sported milk mustaches and encouraged Americans to drink more milk and eat more dairy products. But it wasn't just Hollywood backing the dairy industry, as the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the state of California played a massive role in the campaign's success, which Saveur dubbed, "one of the greatest ad campaigns of all time."

To this day, the USDA recommends children consume dairy products and milk on a daily basis. Per year, an American consumes about 18 pounds of bacon and nearly 300 eggs. Celebrity chef Geoffrey Zakarian makes fancy egg dishes for his son for breakfast, who reportedly eats three dozen eggs per week. From bacon and eggs to dairy milk, these examples reveal how well PR campaigns and psychology dictate what we eat. The next time you're craving bacon and eggs for breakfast, is it truly your choice, or something that has been heavily marketed to you? Food for thought, indeed.