Depending on your perspective, "healthy bacon" is either (a) made from turkey or tempeh; or (b) an oxymoron.

If you love real bacon, a poultry or soy-based substitute just doesn't cut it. Sure, you can top your cheeseburger with turkey bacon, but what's the advantage? Most turkey bacon is actually higher in cholesterol than real bacon.

Wild boar is naturally leaner and lower in cholesterol than pork, but it's pricey, too; a 7 ounce package of D'Artagnan's wild boar bacon costs around $7. My idea of healthy bacon is Wellshire Farm's dry-rubbed, center cut bacon, which has 40% less fat than conventional bacon.

What it doesn't have, though, is any omega 3 fatty acids. I had not considered this a problem; I get plenty of omega 3's from fish, flax seed, eggs from omega-3 fed chickens, leafy greens, beans and seeds. Do I really need to get it from pork products as well?

Some scientists seem to think so; the journal Nature Biotechnology reports that a group of university researchers has created a cloned, genetically modified pig "with muscle tissue larded with omega-3 fatty acids."

Whether the FDA will ever approve such a pig remains to be seen, but its very existence raises a number of questions. Would omega-3 enhanced pigs really provide us with heart healthy ham? After all, the scientists haven't eliminated the saturated fat and cholesterol that pork contains. Does adding omega 3 fatty acids make pork that much healthier?

The purpose of the omega-3 pig is to enable people to "continue to eat their junk food," according to Alexander Leaf, an emeritus professor of clinical medicine at Harvard. "You won't have to change your diet, but you will be getting what you need."

I didn't know I needed omega-3 enriched pork rinds. Lay's is already making green tea potato chips for the Asian market. What's next, flavonoid-filled doughnuts?