Tell Your Man to Avoid Bacon for the Baby Makin'

Ladies, you might want to plan an extra special night for your own bacon lover, as this news could bring him to his knees: Bacon may be detrimental to his sperm. We all know that maintaining a balanced diet is the very first step toward a healthy pregnancy... and bacon dripping in grease isn't necessarily at the center of a well-rounded meal.

Researchers at Harvard University studied 141 men whose partners were having trouble getting pregnant and whose partners also underwent in vitro fertilization cycles from 2007 through 2014. It is important to note that these researchers only looked at one aspect of sperm health, and any infertility that these couples struggled with could be a result of a combination of different factors.

However, the dietary habits of those men were assessed insofar as to how the food they ate affected a sperm's ability to fertilize an egg. Researchers actually identified a positive association with the intake of poultry: there was a 13 percent higher fertilization rate for men who ate lots of poultry compared to those who ate less, so says the Fertility and Sterility study abstract.

>> Try this Honey Lemon Glazed Chicken recipe!

The same couldn't be said for processed meats — your sausages, Spam and, yes, bacon. Men who gobbled down bacon and ate Spam out of the can more than 4.3 servings per week had a 28 percent lower success rate of fertility with IVF. In regular IVF cycles, couples had 82 percent of their eggs fertilized when the man ate the least amount of processed meat. Couples only had 54 percent of their eggs fertilized when the man ate the most amount of processed meat. While the connection between eating processed meats and a lower success rate of fertility has raised more questions than answers, researchers have ruled out other health issues associated with red meats as being potentially dangerous to sperm. Myriam Afeiche, Ph.D., an author of the study, said that the sperm damage could not be attributed to "total fat intake nor animal fat."

>> Your husband will get a kick out of this seaweed that tastes like bacon!

Another study done in 2013 identified lower sperm counts in men with diets high in processed meats. The same study noted a positive association between eating fish, such as salmon or halibut, and a higher sperm count. Until more research is conducted and analysis of these interesting results starts to firm up, the best thing your man can do to protect his personal swimming team is to eat more fish, exercise regularly, and keep the double bacon cheeseburgers to a minimum.

>> And if he just has to have a cheeseburger, why not go the skinny route? Try our skinny cheeseburger pie!