An email that starts with the word “nudists” is likely to stop my right hand before it can click on the delete icon.

An email that starts with the word “nudists” and also includes, in the same sentence, the phrase “splatter-free meals” is certain to do so.

I’m not much of a cook.

(Although I am something of a maestro of the microwave.)

But that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the absence of splatters during the preparation of a meal.

I’ve felt the brief but sharp pains on one hand, rather like being stung simultaneously by a swarm of wasps, when I clumsily flipped a strip of bacon and spawned a shower of hot fat.

Probably other parts of my body were also pelted with the scalding dollops.

But they, unlike my hand, were clothed.

I shudder to imagine the effects of a similar greasy geyser had I been preparing bacon in the nude.

(I shudder even more to imagine my family’s reaction to such a scene. Traumatized is the word that comes readily to mind. Also, shuddering is one of the actions that, when linked to nudity, suggests unpleasant views involving an abundance of, well, jiggling.)

Bacon is among the foods that make chewing something like ecstasy rather than toil.

But I’m not sure even the rich and meaty euphoria that a mouthful of bacon induces is worth skin grafts.

Particularly if the grafting happens in certain sensitive areas which most of the time are protected by fabric.

The danger is of course quite a lot more acute for people who prepare their meals while naked.

Which, apparently, they do.

Actually, nudists seem to be rather more clubby than I expected them to be.

The email I mentioned was sent by the American Association for Nude Recreation.

This is, lest you wonder, an actual organization. And a venerable one, at 90 years old.

I checked its website. For purely research purposes.

(There were pictures, although of course I was interested only in the text. I happened to notice, though, in my cursory look, that all the photos were taken with a wide angle lens so the level of detail, as it were, was lacking. Very wide angle.)

The email notes that “nudists, like most of us, love to cook.”

I thought this sounded a trifle defensive.

Although I suppose I can understand such an attitude.

Most Americans, after all, spend most of their time at least marginally clothed, which leaves nudists out in the cold, figuratively speaking (and, potentially, literally).

But however far out of the mainstream nudists might be given their disdain for donning garments, I doubt many people would assume that nudists don’t have a normal affinity for cooking.

They have to eat, after all.

(And I suspect they would run into trouble if they had to rely on restaurants for most of their meals, what with those pesky “no shoes, shirt, service” policies. Especially the shirt.)

As for the issue of splatters, the email bore this headline: “Nudists’ Favorite Kitchen Aid: Slow Cooker.”

The email notes that “according to the majority of the American Association for Nude Recreation (www.aanr.com) members, they have a major incentive to avoid hot splatters.”

Indeed.

The email contends that with winter approaching, and hot meals such as stews and soups more popular, slow cookers, being less prone to splattering than, say, a frying pan, are especially favored among nudists.

The email doesn’t delve any further into this topic.

In fact the message seemed to me almost a non sequitur, intended not so much to educate journalists about the cooking preference of nudists — a topic which, I’ll admit, has never piqued my curiosity — but rather to get the word out about the American Association for Nude Recreation.

(And obviously it worked.)

I did learn much about this organization — most notably that it actually exists.

Its purpose, according to the email, is to protect “the freedoms and rights of those who participate in wholesome, family-style nude recreation.”

The group also “supports 180 chartered clubs, resorts, and campgrounds” and sponsors an annual event, “International Skinny Dip Day.”

I consulted the maps on the website — again, for completely scholarly reasons — and I confirmed that I had never camped at any of the places listed.

I’m pretty sure that, had it been otherwise, I would have remembered the experience.

Never mind splatters.

The sight of nude barbecuing, in addition to posing a risk of permanent scarring, is one likely to lodge deeply in the fissures of memory.

Jayson Jacoby is editor of the Baker City Herald.