My understanding is that bacon itself is not the culprit of the possible (note — possible) carcinogen. The sodium nitrate that is often used as a preservative is. Nitrate-free bacon is easy to find though.
To what everybody else is saying, I'll add that by the US definition, that's not bacon; it's back bacon, which is a loin cut, radically different than American bacon, which I believe you lot call "streaky bacon".
Being a global community, would we assume bacon means all types of bacon cut? I have been but maybe I've been wrong. Surely we're not just referring to streaky bacon or American bacon
Yes, we would assume here that bacon means pork belly bacon. The reason nitrates are such a big deal with American bacon is that they're an important part of the flavor of the bacon (nitrates create "hammy" flavor). If there's genuinely un-cured pork loin "bacon" in Germany or New Zealand or whatever, that's great, but it's a less interesting claim than that there's real nitrate/nitrite-free American bacon (I don't believe there is).
Sorry my question wasn't about nitrates. It was about the use of the term bacon being used to define all bacon's as we're a global community or whether people in general on this community would think of bacon being used for only streaky bacon.
I wouldn't be surprised if that's misleading considering the other article was suggesting nitrite precursors are usually what's in the food later to be turned into nitrite, but I'd love to be wrong.
You could simply measure the levels of nitrite before any exists and the end product might still have just as much.
Contains the weasel words I pasted in below, which are verbatim what the US producers that use celery salt claim. Also, they don’t list the natural flavors. I’d bet they’re using celery salt, but that UK labeling laws don’t make them break it out as a separate ingredient:
> Primal Cut free-from naked bacon contains only fresh organic fruit sugars and nitrates present in the natural raw organic seasonings.
It's exactly the same, except one uses celery. No, in fact, if I remember correctly, the nitrates used in the "uncured" process were even higher than the normal process.
A big problem with the these "nitrate free" forms is that Vitamin C was required in the "nitrate" versions, to prevents the formation of some of the carcinogens [1]. In the "nitrate free" versions, it is not! I make sure to drink orange juice, or take a vitamin C, with any form of bacon.
Green leafy vegetables contain a hell of a lot more nitrate than cured meat does.
Sure, there's less protein in vegetables, so less chance of nitrosamines forming, unless you're eating a complete meal, in which case... figure it out.
Also, vegetables contain anti-oxidants and things which offset some of the nitrates, but this just seems like a reason to eat some vegetables with your cured meats.
Nitrate-free bacon isn't bacon. The stuff that is marketed as nitrate-free isn't -- it's a dubiously moral marketing gimmick that is essentially untrue.
https://www.americastestkitchen.com/cooksillustrated/how_tos...