Looking rosy (too rosy?)
Dang! Bacon tastes good! What is the harm done by eating bacon, chorizo, ham, all those lovely cured meats, which add bursts of salty, smoky flavour to our food? Will we go to hell in a hand basket if we fling a rasher of bacon on our Eggs Bene or in our lunch sandwich? Mmm. It might be time to avoid the pink and opt for the grey.
Nitrites and nitrates, the baddies, are responsible for keeping or turning processed meat an appealing pink colour. They can also form carcinogenic nitrosamines, resulting in cancers, particularly bowel cancer. That’s the bad news.
For the past 25 years in Italy Parma ham has been made the traditional way, without nitrates or nitrites. It is just pork and salt, cured for around 18 months. The long curing ensures the meat remains pink. (I must qualify, this applies JUST to Italian Parma ham, not ham made in other countries.) Can bacon be made without nitrites? It can but the nitrite-free bacon available here is more grey than pink. So what? It tastes good and is waaaaaay better for you. So why isn’t all bacon made this way? Profit is one reason. More money is made in speedy processes.
If you start Googling bacon, cured meats, you will see that many vegetables also contain nitrates, but it seems that it is added nitrates that are the problem. Untangling nitrites and nitrates is not straightforward (I’m no scientist!). The best article I have read in a long time is here, in The Guardian, by Bee Wilson. It’s a long read, but stay with it, it’s worth it.
YES BACON REALLY IS KILLING US
And for more about cuts of bacon
