APAD: Save one's bacon

7
7grizzly
楼主 (文学城)

Meaning:

   Escape from injury; avoid harm, especially to one's body.

 

Background:

   By bacon, we now normally mean the cured and dried meat taken from the back

   or sides of a pig. To the medieval mind, `bacon' was meat from anywhere on

   the body of the animal - more akin to what we now call pork. This was the

   origin of the slang term `bacon' meaning the human body. `Saving your bacon'

   was simply saving your body from harm. The expression was used that way as

   early as the 17th century as, for example, this extract from Ireland's Momus

   Elenticus, 1654:

 

     "Some fellowes there were... To save their bacon penn'd many a smooth song."

 

- www.phrases.org.uk [edited]

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

In the 70s, peasants survived mainly on corn, sorghum, and sweet potatoes on the

Northern Plains. Besides a general lack of material, none of the staple foods,

called the coarse grains, tasted good. Rice or wheat, the fine grains, were rare

and could be had only on special days.

 

Then, our prayers were answered. Over a short time span in the mid 80s wheat

flours, code-named the 90, 85, 72, and Rich-Strong, one sweeter, whiter, and

smoother than the other, flooded the country. A miracle. Only it was no mana

from heaven but a plague. When I look back, those days reminded me of the scene

in the movie Alien Covenant where David the android showered the black goo from

the spaceship over the Engineers.

 

Soon, people, mostly adults, began to fell [sic] prey to the diseases of affluence,

diabetes, strokes, angina, infarction, coronery heart diseases, etc., hitherto

unheard of except among the rich, as we stuffed ourselves day in day out with

the dainty cheap buns, naans, dumplings, noodles, etc., all made of white wheat

flour. The memory of the early 60s' famine still fresh, we couldn't get enough

of the stuff. Few realized in time that they needed to save their bacon from a

much better disguised and much more trecherous [sic] enemy.

最西边的岛上
dibs;-)).Wow! felt quilty 4 being inBejingThen. DadLovedRice
暖冬cool夏
A good one and great writeup! Let‘s save our bacon via

healthy diet. 

Two typos here: to fall prey to, and treacherous:)

最西边的岛上
we saved4him &ate lotsCornmeals (mixed w/ white flour) then.
最西边的岛上
neverLiked bacon (savedOrNot;-) & junkFood's theDevil 2all!
7
7grizzly
Of course, how we dreamed of living in Beijing!
7
7grizzly
The Koreans&Mexicans make corn so much more palatable.
7
7grizzly
We should've learned.
7
7grizzly
Thank you and thanks for pointing out the typos.
最西边的岛上
& thank "God" that 7G ain't an AI (I often have typos 2 ;-)
7
7grizzly
Anyone know why wheat suddenly became abundant in the 80's?
7
7grizzly
AI said it was Deng Xiaoping.
最西边的岛上
妖妖灵
救人一命,胜造七级浮屠 Saving one‘s bacon is better than building
妖妖灵
a seven-story pagota~
7
7grizzly
I just typed in the question in Google search.

Q: why wheat became abundant suddenly in the 80s in china

A: China experienced a rapid increase in agricultural production, particularly in grain output, during the 1980s. This surge in abundance was largely due to a series of rural economic reforms initiated by Deng Xiaoping's government, aimed at boosting agricultural productivity and improving food security. 

7
7grizzly
The Capitalist's solution: systematically kill and save, e.g
7
7grizzly
promote junk food & spend on healthcare :-)
最西边的岛上
wiki said similar:adoption of the socialist market econom.C:

"After adoption of the socialist market economy, agricultural production increased significantly and China eliminated starvation. Production of nearly every agricultural product continued to grow afterwards, although rates of growth slowed somewhat after 2000."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_agriculture_in_China#Reform_of_the_agricultural_economy_in_the_1980s

移花接木
I doubted if any food absolutely healthy, we can hardly
移花接木
understand global food shortage. Any wheat is good to

people fighting for survival 

7
7grizzly
Sure. For us, good things turned disaster quickly as we
7
7grizzly
gorged on white flour three meals a day.