Today is bursting day, a unique take on the Fat Tuesday tradition. Locals consume salted, and often fatty, meat dishes until bursting. According to the profoundly poorly named SS meat packaging company of Iceland, salted meat sales have remained constant, but consumers are purchasing cuts with less fat than they did in the past.
Locals have long joked about the negative health effects of consuming extremely salty, fatty meat. In fact, according to writer and historian Árni Björnsson, it is the health effects on the stomach that may have given rise to the name Bursting Day (sprengidagur). Today’s Fréttabladid quoted a certified nutritionist who claimed that consuming this food only once a year “won’t kill anyone.”
