• Share this Email Facebook Twitter

Bacon bowls will save us. With an assist from licky clams.

We need saving because Big Organic, the opportunistic offshoot of Big Food, is increasingly eroding the standards that define certified organic.

That was the major punchline of the most talked-about food article of the year so far, the Sunday New York Times' "Has 'Organic' Been Oversized?" And it isn't surprising. But just how it's happening is certainly enlightening—including the role of the Carmel Valley-spawned Earthbound Farm in the corporatization of everything.

And it's also depressing, which is why we need to balance our edible-news diet with lighter fare so we aren't immediately attempting to choke ourselves with seasonal stone fruit (organic, please).

Cue the bacon bowls.

Picture the possibilities: Bacon-broccoli salad in…a bacon bowl. California omelets with avocado, jack cheese and bacon in…a bacon bowl. Mints or candies at the realtor's office from…a bacon bowl.

Here's how to make bacon bowl (or cup, if you must), courtesy of wikiHow. I feel better already.

There's more uplift where that came from, including:

• The best wine marketing idea since boxed wine: Second Cheapest Wine. Yes, the best ideas, once you hear them, just seem obvious.

• News from the California State Fair that, in addition to deep-fried Pop-Tarts, Cap'n Crunch and Fruity Pebbles, they will also have "the Donut Dog: a maple bar with a weiner in the center. No stick." Imagine that in a bacon bowl. (In other words, there might be bigger things to worry about besides Big Organic.)

• Salt-licking clam sitting on the kitchen table. Words just get in the way on this one.

• Word from Mother Jones that the Times piece was a little over the top. While Tom Philpott wisely acknowledges "none of this is to say that the organic label is perfect or beyond legitimate criticism," there are some major positives to embrace.

"[Organic pioneering] Cornucopia is right to get the public fired up about the integrity of organic, and to pressure the USDA to stop stuffing the [National Organic Standards Board] with Big Food flacks in disguise," he writes. "But to jump from there to the conclusion that organic is a fraud, a mere marketing front for big food, is to go too far."