The bacon magicians have gone too far.

I write this with regret.

(And a rill of saliva running down my chin.)

I hesitate even to suggest that anyone can love bacon too much.

Cardiologists no doubt would disagree, but those killjoys disdain all processed meats.

The problem is that entrepreneurs want to use the essence of bacon, rather than actual bacon, to sell products you can’t even eat.

Or shouldn’t try to eat, anyway.

But what’s the point of bacon anything if you can’t put it in your mouth and let it ooze over your tastebuds in a lava-like tide of warm, meaty ecstasy?

And so it was with mounting horror that I read an email which I recently received from JandD’s Foods.

If you have anything beyond the ordinary affinity for bacon you’ve probably heard of this outfit. Like as not you have its products in your refrigerator or pantry and you like to show them off to friends who lack your pork knowledge pedigree.

JandD’s are pioneers in the bacon industry. In fact it’s not hyperbole to call them geniuses.

If they made only one thing – Baconnaise, their exquisite bacon-flavored mayo – their legend would be ensured.

But the company also has injected bacony goodness into salt, popcorn and croutons.

(Although the latter, considering its association with salads, seems to me an unnecessary concession to health crusaders such as Dr. Oz who worry too much about other people’s arteries.)

Hubris, alas, tends to plague the greatest among us.

And so it is with JandD’s.

The subject of this email is the company’s new bacon-scented pillowcases.

Sounds brilliant at first, right?

I assure you it’s not.

And here’s why you don’t want fall asleep smelling bacon, and awaken to its intoxicating aroma:

Hold on.

Of course youdowant to fall asleep smelling bacon.

And youdowant to awaken to its intoxicating aroma.

But I’m talking aboutrealbacon, sizzling in a frying pan.

Cloth impregnated with fake bacon scent, by contrast,is no more satisfying than those scratch-and-sniff books that were popular when I was a kid in the 1970s and that were probably infused with chemicals that would get you on the Superfund list in our more environmentally enlightened era.

Willy Wonka at least put lickable wallpaper in his factory – you could taste the snozzberries, not just smell their ersatz scent.

The danger of bacon-scented pillowcases is that they could dull your senses, and thus detract from your enjoyment of actual bacon.

Look, I appreciate the near ubiquity of bacon in America.

Once a rather humble food, relegated mainly to the breakfast table, bacon is now acceptable fare with any meal.

Including dessert, thanks to chocolate-covered bacon.

But even bacon connoisseurs need their rest, uninterrupted by the odor of faux bacon.

The other thing that frightens me about JandD’s foray into non-nutritive products is the possibility that the company, by plowing profits into items I can’t eat rather than into research, will make fewer bacon breakthroughs in the future.

This saddens as well as scares me.

Given their track record I’m confident that the RandD people at JandD’s haven’t exhausted the ways to wedge bacon ever more firmly into the American menu.

Yet they’re dallying with pillowcases.

Not that JandD’s has solicited my advice, but since they sent me the email I’ll offer it anyway.

Leave home decor to Martha Stewart.

Go back to the kitchen, break out a fresh rasher and get started on your next invaluable contribution to mankind.

Plain, unadulterated cotton is good enough for our pillows.

But our bacon larder can never be too full.

Jayson Jacoby is editorof the Baker City Herald.