'Semi-automatic rifle bacon,' actually

Saturday, October 3, 2015

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz has come out with a political ad that shows him cooking bacon on the barrel of a rifle, CNBC reports.

The ad, published by the Independent Journal Review and titled "Making Machine-Gun Bacon with Ted Cruz," begins with the presidential hopeful saying, "There are few things I enjoy more on the weekend than cooking breakfast with the family. Of course, in Texas, we cook bacon a little differently than most folks." It then shows the bacon being bought, wrapped around the barrel of a gun, and Cruz firing the gun until the bacon is (presumably) cooked. Cruz unwinds and eats a piece, concluding "Mmmm, machine-gun bacon."

Quite apart from the fact that the gun shown was a semi-automatic rifle, not a machine-gun, a FoodSafety.gov representative told the Guardian that cooking with guns is a bad idea. This is partly because you cannot tell if the bacon is getting properly cooked, but because "cleanliness is also a concern here. You want to make sure the surface you are using to prepare food is well sanitized and clean. The end of a machine gun is not recommended."

You can see the video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaZGaJrd3x8 BP