Wikipedia Edit: “Bacon”
For this project on editing a Wikipedia article, I chose to edit the article around Bacon. I have always been interested in nutrition, even choosing to be vegan for the past 10 years. Recently due to some health concerns, I’ve slowly incorporated meat and fish back into my diet. I’ve started with steak as the main concern has been my iron levels. But now am venturing into fish and venturing into other changes I can make within my diet to be at my best. I recently visited a Chinese medicine doctor to explore these other improvements I can implement in my routine and get better advising. While in consultation she brought up eating more protein for breakfast, incorporating eggs, avocado, etc. And that made me raise the question of what about bacon? Prior to going vegan, I could eat a pack of bacon in a day, that’s how much I loved it. My mom always says she knew I was serious about being vegan when she made bacon and I didn’t eat it. But being so conscious as I’ve reintegrated meat, I haven’t added bacon due to all the studies on it being a top carcinogen. So I asked, “What about bacon?” And she went in depth about how the processing of the meat which increases nitrates is the main concern. If you were to get pork belly it would be much healthier as it is the original form of the meat. That was interesting to me, especially because you still see claims of “nitrate free” or “uncured” bacon. So, for this project I thought it fitting to see if the misconceptions I had of bacon also lived in this article. And I was able to find a section called “Health Concerns” that could use some more clarification on these alternative bacon options.
This was my first time editing a Wikipedia article and it took some digging to make sure I was doing it right. It made me realize that the platform really isn’t the most user friendly. Even the layout of some of the articles is confusing at times. But ultimately I was able to submit my edit with sources. I haven’t recieved a response yet.
Prior to submitting the comment I could feel this sense of responsibility, to make sure to cite my sources, or “be right”, or that I could get a response that says I did this all wrong or was wrong. For me there is a ownership I take in sharing information that many others could read and use to make decisions in their life. This is also why I chose to give more context/clairifcation vs. denouncing any information all together. Just giving more information for people to take into account to make the most informed decision they can.
Ultimately this was nice to experience. To get a better understanding of how Wikipedia truly works when I’ve just been an outsider to it for so long. Not sure if I’ll spend my days editing articles now, but it is good to see how the meat is made (pun intended).
