# Did SD get in Reader's Digest?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sd-get-in-readers-digest/48965>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [January 8, 2001, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sd-get-in-readers-digest/48965 "2001-01-08T05:26:13Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2001, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sd-get-in-readers-digest/48965/1 "2001-01-08T05:26:13Z")

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I was looking in Reader’s Digest while waiting for a doctor’s appointment a while back. I don’t remember what month the issue was, but they had a small collection of pseudo-philosophical quips. One was “Never fry bacon in the nude”, from “L.B., via Internet”. Now, I forget who was it who posted the thread about burning himself while doing just that. Anyone? I’m just wondering, if it did originate here, how it got to the old RD.

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**Author:** ![Quadzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/a4c791/32.png) [@Quadzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quadzilla)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2001, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sd-get-in-readers-digest/48965/2 "2001-01-08T05:58:44Z")

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That’s an expression that I’ve heard frequently at a number of places in the past few years, especially in collections of .sig lines - no idea where it started, though.

BTW, the issue of RD was Dec. 2000, I think.

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**Author:** ![Wicked\_Blue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/2acd7d/32.png) [@Wicked\_Blue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wicked_Blue)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2001, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sd-get-in-readers-digest/48965/3 "2001-01-08T12:01:15Z")

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You might want to ask Mr Cynical about that. 😉

Rose

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**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2001, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sd-get-in-readers-digest/48965/4 "2001-01-08T20:30:58Z")

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In _Desert Solitaire_ (published sometime in the 1970s, I think), Edward Abbey gave the exact opposite advice. (His explanation was that if you were naked, you would be much less likely to cook the bacon too fast. But that’s off topic.)

At any rate, it’s one jump from there to the advice that you _shouldn’t_ fry bacon in the nude. So it’s reasonable to expect that that advice has been floating around for awhile now, and can’t be attributed to a single recent source.

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**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\
**Post date:** [January 9, 2001, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sd-get-in-readers-digest/48965/5 "2001-01-09T06:14:57Z")

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Hm. Because I clearly remember a post from a Doper who told a long and complicated story about frying bacon in the nude. He claimed severe burns; I think he said he was drunk at the time, and I know he said he missed a much-anticipated date because of this. IIRC, people took this post seriously. Were we being had?