How do you do this today? Chrome extension? Blocking all images? Do nothing and let it slide?
Then I batch process the html-only emails, using lynx locally to display the text. At no point do any of my processes download anything except the email itself, and it does that via a raw SMTP connection.
People call me paranoid ... they're probably right ... but I just do all this as a matter of course, and it barely affects my flow.