Is Bacon Smoked Or Cured?

Bacon is made from pork, although you can also find similar products like turkey bacon. Bacon typically goes through a curing process, during which the meat is soaked in a solution of salt, nitrates and sometimes sugar. In most cases, the bacon is smoked afterward.
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Is bacon cured and smoked?

The Traditional Bacon-Making Process – So, how does bacon go from a cut of fresh pork to a delicious preserved meat? The traditional method for bacon curing is known as dry curing. The raw bacon is rubbed with salt and other seasonings, which imparts flavor and cures the meat over a period of a week or two.

In some cases, sugar is added to the dry rub for some sweetness. This method is known as dry curing since you don’t add any liquid during the curing process. Typically, after being cured, the bacon is rinsed off, dried and then goes into a smoker for further preservation and flavoring. Typically, the smoking process happens at a low heat, enough to flavor the bacon without cooking it.

The type of wood chips used in the smoker can impart a specific flavor, whether it be applewood, hickory, cherry or any other type of smoke wood. If the bacon isn’t smoked, dry-cured bacon is traditionally hung to air dry in the cold for weeks or even months.

Dry-cured bacon tends to have a more robust flavor than wet-cured bacon, which we’ll discuss next. Dry curing is the time-honored method for curing bacon, so traditional types of bacon are generally dry-cured. This process is more time-consuming, though, so it has become increasingly rare in the U.S. today.

You can still get traditional dry-cured bacon, however, from artisanal companies like S. Clyde Weaver. Happy Bacon Tuesday everybody. To think of the millions of pounds of bacon sliced on this behemoth There is a reason we’re named best bacon in PA, come taste why.
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What is the difference between cured and smoked bacon?

Difference Between Cured Meat vs. Smoked Meat Cured meat and smoked meats cross over in some ways but are also different, let’s look at both in detail. While both methods offer their own unique advantages (and flavors) to meat, curing vs.smoking meat has unique properties that make them quite distinct from one another.

• I’ve been keen on all types for year like dry cured meats made in my DIY curing chamber such as braesola or pancetta.
• I also cold smoke some of these meats as well as cold smoking all kinds of foods like vegetables, cream, cheeses and mushrooms!
• Then on the other side I love to smoke BBQ low and slow indirect briskets, ribs or pork.

Difference Between Cured meat vs. Smoked Meat? Cured meat is preserved through the salt primarily that inhibits meat creating an inhospitable environment for unwanted bacteria. Smoked meat can be cooked through a low heat or cured then cold smoked to dry the meat, cold smoking is not cooking but drying.

1. Of course, each of these adds their own outcomes and BBQ Smoking is SO much simpler then dry curing or cold smoking.
2. The blog is all about my passion around these, so if you’re new to the concepts – you’ find a ton of info. If you want to have a few ideas to try at home, check out this post I wrote for
3. Continue reading to learn more about what makes these two processes unique.

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Is bacon usually cured?

Cured vs. Uncured Bacon – The main difference between cured and uncured bacon is in the ingredients used for curing. Yes, contrary to what these terms imply, both cured and uncured bacon are cured. They just use different curing agents. More meat products are cured than you might think.

Popular cured meats include hot dogs, ham, and smoked sausages like bratwursts and Polish kielbasa, Cured bacon utilizes nitrates and nitrites, such as sodium nitrate and sodium nitrite. These chemical compounds and food preservatives help cure the meat as well as help it maintain its pink color. Uncured bacon doesn’t contain added nitrates or nitrites.

Instead, it relies on natural ingredients such as cultured celery powder and sea salt during the curing process. While these products are still technically cured, the USDA requires bacon without nitrate and nitrites to be labeled with the phrase “Uncured Bacon, No Nitrates or Nitrites Added.” Now that you know the difference between cured and uncured bacon, let’s move on to why you should care.

Added nitrites and nitrates may be harmful to your health. Studies have shown that these chemical additives are not easily processed by your body, and may turn into nitrosamines, Nitrosamines are carcinogenic, meaning that they may lead to the development of cancer. They may also cause reproductive issues and birth defects.

However, another option is to forgo nitrates and nitrites and instead opt for bacon cured with cultured celery powder. This natural ingredient has no known adverse health effects, which is why it’s what Coleman Natural uses in our uncured bacon products,
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What do you call bacon that is not smoked?

Lardons. These French-derived pork belly bacon strips or cubes are cured in salt (not smoked) and offer an excellent boost of flavor to many cuisines and salads.
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Is cured the same as smoked?

Abstract – Meat products that are cured are frequently, but not always, smoked. Although these cured products are often called smoked meats, more correctly, products in this class should be called cured and/or smoked meats, since all of them are cured while only some of them are smoked and/or cooked.
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Are all Bacons smoked?

This cured pork product comes in a variety of styles, such as smoked or dry-cured.
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Does dry cured mean smoked?

What is Dry Cured Meat? Dry Cured Bacon, Ham, Sausage One of my passions is dry curing meat it an old craft that can create amazing results, I get asked a lot about what is dry curing meat, many people think it has something to do with smoked meat. Sometimes it does get smoked, most of the time it doesn’t, depending on the recipe and outcomes one desires.

Traditionally, dry-curing meat was used for preserving long-term. So when you harvested a pig, you would cut it up into major muscle groups and rub salt into it. leaving it for a set amount of days. There wasn’t any refrigeration or freezing back then. The salt removes the moisture, making the environment not so friendly to bacteria that spoil the meat.

The pig was then enjoyed months later. Selection of Dry Cured Wild Meats There have been some modern methods introduced which have now meant if you’re dry curing to make Italian salumi or other types of cured meat, you can make sure it doesn’t get too salty. Salumi is all about dry curing the meat in a traditional Italian way, I wrote a post about the difference between salumi and salami, check it out,2 main methods for dry curing – modern method is used when preserving/drying is called equilibrium curing,

The other method which is still used extensively the artisan way is saturation or saltbox curing the meat (leaving the meat immersed for several days based on weight). What is Dry Cured Meat? Using a dry salt cure removes the moisture and intensifies the flavor. It also provides a preserving effect. Preserving occurs due to a drier environment that reduces the growth of bacteria that could spoil the meat.

If you want to know more about salumi vs. salami – I explained it quickly, All these dry cured meats are in essence ‘dried’ until they are safe to eat, they are first salted so that moisture is pulled out and the bacteria that normally causes deterioration in meat can’t survive in the saline environment.
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Which is healthier cured or uncured bacon?

Uncured bacon doesn’t contain nitrites, but is still high in fat and sodium. Image Credit: haoliang/E+/GettyImages For many people, breakfast just isn’t breakfast without bacon and eggs. While eggs are a healthy breakfast choice, eating bacon every day isn’t good for your health.
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What is another name for cured bacon?

Prosciutto, pancetta, and bacon are all cured meats that look and taste somewhat similarly; but their appearance, texture, and taste differ depending on where the meat comes from, the breed of pig it comes from, and how it’s cured.
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Is supermarket bacon cured?

How to Buy and Store Bacon Like a Pro Bacon has been proven time and again to make everything—,,, even —better. And the rise of passionate bacon lovers, there has been a corresponding increase in consumers’ access to many different types of bacon at supermarkets, butcher shops, and specialty stores. I called Joseph Cordray, an extension meat specialist in the Department of Animal Science at Iowa State University, to talk about how this most popular of foodstuffs gets to market, what shelf-stable bacon is about, and how to store bacon at home (if for some bizarre reason you don’t just eat it all up).

What is bacon? Bacon is cured and smoked pork belly cut crosswise into strips. If it comes from anywhere on the pig other than the belly (shoutout to the late ), the label has to specify where. Canadian bacon is cut from the loin, above the belly, so it’s leaner. British back bacon is a happy medium between Canadian and American bacon—it’s cut from the loin but with some of the fat from the belly attached.

Pancetta, often called Italian bacon, is cured but not smoked and shaped into a roll. Grocery stores often sell pancetta in thin, round slices or already diced, but butcher and specialty shops usually slice it to order. Guanciale comes from the pig’s cheek or jowl.

• Like pancetta, it’s cured but not usually smoked.
• It can be hard to find outside of a good butcher shop or Italian or specialty market.
• Slab bacon, which you can usually find at butcher shops, isn’t sliced.
• It comes in a large slab so you can slice it however thickly or thinly you want.
• Center-cut” bacon is from the center portion of the belly, which has the most consistent ratio of fat to lean, says Cordray.

For this reason, you’ll pay a little more for it. You’ll also pay more for certified organic bacon, The “natural” label, however, is an unregulated term; you can ignore it.

The other baconBacon made from another animal, such as turkey, can be labeled bacon (purists, bite your tongue), but the packaging has to clearly state exactly what the bacon is made of, according to USDA regulations.Three ways to cure bacon

Most supermarket bacon is conventionally cured. It’s a quick process that involves injecting pork belly with a brine containing sodium nitrite, the crucial ingredient that gives bacon its pink hue and helps preserve it, Cordray says. The meat is then “tumbled” under a vacuum to distribute the brine.
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Is uncured bacon still cured?

When was the last time you read a story where the villain was celery? Pull up a chair. Food and agriculture are complicated, and I end up writing a lot of click-proof pieces chock full of eye-glazing detail concluding that there’s no easy answer. So it’s a pleasant change of pace when I encounter an issue that is black and white.

• Crystal clear.
• A no-brainer.
• It’s “uncured” bacon.
• You know the stuff.
• It populates the shelves at Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, and there are generally a few choices at supermarkets.
• It says “uncured” in big letters, and you buy it because you think it’s better for you, being free of nitrates and nitrites.

But guess what? It isn’t better for you. It does have nitrates and nitrites. Sometimes, higher levels than conventionally cured meats. This is not a secret. Google it, and you’ll find that all kinds of people have written about it. Somehow, though, it hasn’t entered the public consciousness, and I’m going to do my level best to change that.

The issue is that “uncured” bacon is actually cured. It’s cured using exactly the same stuff — nitrite — used in ordinary bacon. It’s just that, in the “uncured” meats, the nitrite is derived from celery or beets or some other vegetable or fruit naturally high in nitrate, which is easily converted to nitrite.

In ordinary bacon and cured meats, the nitrite is in the form of man-made sodium nitrite. But the nitrite molecule is the same, no matter its source. It’s worthwhile to take a moment to understand the difference between nitrate and nitrite. (Besides, without at least some eye-glazing detail, how would you know it was me?) I asked Jeff Sindelar, professor of meat science at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, to explain the process.

Nitrate is a molecule consisting of one nitrogen atom with three oxygens. That is easily converted (by an enzyme from bacteria) into nitrite, which has only two oxygens. When nitrite comes into contact with protein, it is converted to nitric oxide, which does the actual curing. “When you cure products, you change the microflora,” says Sindelar.

“Certain bacteria can grow, others are inhibited. The things that make products spoil, you slow them down and add shelf life.” Among the inhibited is the bacterium that causes botulism. Curing slows down fat oxidation, which reduces rancidity. It’s also responsible for the characteristic flavor and nice pink color of bacon, ham and hot dogs.

Doing this with veg-derived nitrite is a relatively new thing. “The celery cure was developed in the 1990s in response to the developing interest in natural products,” says Joseph Sebranek, professor of animal science, food science and human nutrition at Iowa State University. When the first products came to market, about 20 years ago, they used nitrate, and manufacturers needed an extra step in the process to convert it to nitrite.

Now, though, thanks to the miracle of modern technology, the celery powder contains nitrite, and Sindelar says 98 or 99 percent of veg-cured products on the market use that. I know I said this already, but nitrite is nitrite, no matter where it comes from.

1. Veg-derived nitrite does the same thing to the meat, and it has the same health implications (more on that later).
2. There is one difference, though.
3. When the nitrite comes from sodium (or potassium) nitrite, it’s regulated (allowable levels vary by product).
4. There are no limits for nitrite from celery powder.

This doesn’t mean you should expect sky-high nitrite levels in “uncured” meats. Most of the tests that have been done find comparable levels, but at least one found veg-cured nitrite levels to be significantly higher. But wait, there’s more. If you cure your bacon with celery rather than sodium nitrite, you are required by law to label that bacon “uncured.” You also have to include the statement “no nitrates or nitrites added.” That’s right.

1. Required by law.
2. What the, . .? I asked the USDA why celery powder wasn’t approved as a curing agent when it performs the same function as sodium nitrate.
3. They apparently routed my request to their Tautology Division, as their answer was, “because curing agents are specifically defined in 9 CFR 424.21(c) as limited to sodium or potassium nitrate or sodium or potassium nitrite from synthetic sources.” Well, okay then.

It’s important to note that there are some bacons and sausages that are genuinely uncured: no sodium nitrite, no celery, no nothing. You’ll know them by their gray color and unappetizing flavor. Those also say “uncured” on the label; the difference is that the celery-cured products are required to say, after the part where no nitrites are added, “except those naturally occurring in,” But that part can be in small print.

1. The rules were made before the celery cure existed, but food technology has an annoying habit of changing.
2. I don’t envy the people whose job it is to keep up with those changes, and I have tremendous respect for the hard-working scientists and regulators at the USDA, but the “uncured” situation has been going on for quite some time now.

Back in 2011, Applegate Farms, a large purveyor of veg-cured meats, petitioned the USDA to add “curing agents made from vegetable juices” to the list of approved agents. Why? Well, because they cure, but also because “having a cured product labeled as ‘uncured’ is contradictory and causes confusion among consumers.” You can’t talk about that confusion without tackling the question of whether bacon causes cancer, an idea that took root because research done on rats in the 1970s led the FDA to propose a ban on sodium nitrite.

I t never happened, and subsequent research has cast doubt on that association. The concern comes because, under certain conditions (like high heat), nitrite can be converted to nitrosamines, compounds that are widely agreed to be carcinogens. Fried bacon can contain nitrosamines, and, according to Sindelar, you can also end up with nitrosamines if you subject nitrate-containing vegetables to high heat in the presence of protein.

Observational studies have found that higher consumption levels of sausage and bacon (many of which are smoked, and have additives besides just the N-ones) correlate with higher levels of colorectal cancer. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) found that every 50 grams of processed meat per day upped the risk by 18 percent.

• The IARC is somewhat controversial, and not every scientist takes their findings to the bank, but the ink is still wet on a study of processed meat with findings that are nearly identical.
• I don’t find observational studies particularly persuasive, and people who eat a lot of bacon are different from people who don’t in all kinds of ways that are tough to control for, but I think it’s safe to say that bacon every day is probably a bad idea.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest believes the risk is significant enough that the group has petitioned the USDA to put warning labels on cured meats. CSPI’s policy director, Laura MacCleery, pointed out to me that, given that risk assessment, an “uncured” label that confuses consumers about nitrite content is particularly problematic.

I’m not going to try to adjudicate this dispute, largely because, for purposes of the silliness of the labeling requirements, it’s irrelevant. Whether the risk is high or low, it’s the same for both kinds of curing. I tried to get Applegate and Oscar Mayer to share their thoughts on all this, but they didn’t seem to want to talk to me.

So I’ll share my thoughts instead: The only reason to cure meat with celery is to give people the idea that it’s in some way better than conventionally cured meat. But it isn’t better, and veg-curing is a phony-baloney (if you’ll excuse the expression) gambit to confer a health halo on products that most definitely don’t earn it.
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What is the difference between cured and uncured bacon?

Cured and uncured bacon are both cured meats, but different ingredients preserve the pork. Cured bacon uses artificial nitrates, while uncured bacon uses natural nitrates. Uncured bacon can be saltier than cured bacon.
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Can you eat bacon raw?

Bacon is cured and smoked, so do you absolutely have to cook it? The other day, my colleague tried to convince me that I could eat raw bacon, His logic? Bacon is cured, like deli ham, and you can eat deli ham without cooking it, so why do you need to cook bacon ? I, however, was horrified, and starting having horrible thoughts of roundworm-induced gastrointestinal distress.

• I quickly realized that we’re not the only people having this debate about raw, uncooked bacon,
• There are plenty of folks on the internet who are wondering, ” Will raw bacon kill me ?” or ” Can you die from eating raw bacon ?” And though those questions are a bit dramatic, the original question stands: Can you eat uncooked bacon safely? If not, then what happens if you eat raw bacon ? Is it the nightmare of food poisoning that I imagined, or will everything be totally fine? In order to understand why my coworker thinks it’d be totally fine to eat raw bacon, you have to understand how bacon is made and what curing is.

Bacon is a cured meat, made by taking a slab of pork belly and letting it sit in a brine, or mix of salt and water. The salt in the water draws the moisture out of the meat, killing some of the bacteria that are living on the meat and stopping the further growth of other bacteria, according to the The National Center for Home Food Preservation Guide and Literature Review Series.

That bacteria-killing process is kind of the whole point of curing meats. It’s an easy—and tasty—way to preserve food that would otherwise quickly rot. So yes, bacon has a longer shelf life than raw pork belly and other uncured meats. But that doesn’t mean you should eat raw bacon, since cured meat can still grow bacteria if handled incorrectly.

“Because of the added salt and nitrite, bacon is far less perishable than other raw meat products,” writes the US Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, adding, “Even so, the chilling is done quickly to prevent bacterial growth and promote its shelf-life.” Some would argue that the smoking process of bacon can make it safe for consumption, straight out of the package.

(And by “some” I mean my coworker.) And it’s true that smoking, or cooking meat slowly over indirect heat so it’s imparted with the flavor of the wood, can leave you with bacon that’s safe to eat without frying it. This is especially true if the pork has reached a minimum internal temperature of 145°F during the smoking process.

But if you’re buying bacon from the grocery store or even a butcher, there’s no way to guarantee that the bacon has been smoked to that bacteria-killing temperature. Plus, as the USDA FSIS points out, there are plenty of companies that give bacon the flavor of smoke by “spraying the bacon with a liquid smoke extract” and don’t actually smoke it and cook it.

• Bacon that’s been just given the flavor of smoke without actually being smoked probably hasn’t reached that minimum internal temperature, which means it could be harboring bacteria or parasites that’ll make you sick.
• And you can get very sick from eating raw or undercooked pork.
• The most notorious illness is a parasitic infection called trichinellosis, which, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, can cause, “nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, fatigue, fever, and abdominal discomfort,” that can last for months.

Long story short? Don’t eat raw bacon. Even if it’s cured, bacon can still go bad if it’s not handled correctly, and you can’t guarantee that your smoke-flavored bacon has been actually smoked to a safe internal temperature. Really, the only way to guarantee that the bacon you’re eating is free of bacteria is to cook it thoroughly yourself, in a frying pan, the oven, or even a microwave.
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Is ham smoked or cured?

Hams can be fresh, cured or cured-and-smoked. The term ham refers to the cured leg of pork. A fresh ham would be an uncured leg of pork.
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What is cured meat called?

Charcuterie (/ʃɑːrˈkuːtəri/ ( listen) shar-KOO-tər-ee, also US: /ʃɑːrˌkuːtəˈriː/ ( listen) -⁠EE; French: ( listen); from chair, ‘flesh’, and cuit, ‘cooked’) is a French term for a branch of cooking devoted to prepared meat products, such as bacon, ham, sausage, terrines, galantines, ballotines, pâtés, and
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Is raw bacon smoked?

Pretty much any bacon you buy comes already smoked and cured, same as ham right? I eat it raw on occasion and have never gotten sick. The only ‘raw feeling’ i ever get is from the fat itself, the meat just reminds me of ham. However, on all the packages of bacon it says to thoroughly cook.
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Why is it called smoked bacon?

How do you smoke bacon? – Understanding how bacon is smoked boils down to the difference between hot and cold. First, there’s “hot” smoking, which exposes a meat to not only the smokiness of a fire, but a sufficient amount of heat to actually cook it enough for consumption.

Whether we’re talking about going low and slow on a grill with the help of wood chips or using one of those giant BBQ pit smokers, hot smoking is more or less what’s going on. Smoked bacon, on the other hand, comes from “cold” smoking pork belly (or pork loin, in Canada’s case). Done in a smokehouse at temperatures ranging from 86ºF all the way down to 68ºF, the smoke purely exists for flavoring purposes.

If a pack of bacon’s labeling notes that it was “hardwood smoked” or “naturally smoked,” that’s your indication that it was placed in a smoker and subjected to a real wood-burning fire. Not all bacon is necessarily smoked naturally, however. Liquid smoke, essentially the byproduct of condensing smoke from a fire, can inject some of that smoky feel through less conventional means.
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Which is the Italian bacon that is cured but not smoked?

So pancetta is cured and unsmoked, while bacon is cured and smoked, but both need to be cooked before being eaten. They can be used interchangeably in dishes, depending on whether or not you want a smoky flavor.
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Is cured meat smoked?

Cured Meat – Cured meat refers to meat that has been treated for preservation either through brining, smoking, canning, smoking, or drying. Meat is purposely cooked to prevent it from being attacked by microorganisms that would make it harmful for consumption.

1. Curing is also done to increase the meat’s shelf-life and keep it safe for consumption for longer.
2. Curing meat is an ancient practice that has been performed for centuries.
3. It can either be done dry, wet, or a combination of the two.
4. Dry curing is done to extract the excess salt by draining the meat.
5. Wet curing is done with the use of a mixture of water and salt performed in the refrigerator.

Combined curing is a rare process that combines both the dry and wet processes. It’s mostly used to treat hams and is performed in the refrigerator. There are different ways you can apply salt or brine to the meat. You can either choose to massage it, sprinkle, inject, or soak the meat in a container of salt.
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Is bacon a smoked meat?

What makes smoked bacon safe to eat if it hasn’t been cooked? – In order for cold smoked meats like bacon to be safe to eat, a preliminary process called curing comes into play before the smoking gets started. Curing is when meat is coated with salt, sugar, and/or nitrites (most often sodium nitrate, sodium nitrate, or potassium nitrate) to strip away the moisture that serves as a breeding ground for food-spoiling microbes.

1. Jerky follows a very similar process.
2. Similar to “hot” and “cold” smoking or regular and liquid smoke, there’s also “dry” and “wet” curing.
3. Dry curing is the straightforward process of rubbing down meats like pork belly with those curing ingredients, letting them hang out in that state for a week or two.

Conversely, wet curing takes those same ingredients and mixes them into a brine that meat is either soaked in or injected with in a process called “pumping.” Because it works faster than the more time-honored (and time-intensive) dry curing method, it’s also more common in mass bacon production.
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What does it mean for bacon to be cured?

And which one is best for your breakfast meat needs? Bacon is a cured meat, made by letting a slab of pork belly (or side or loin or fatback) sit in brine or salt for a while to preserve it. So if all bacon is cured by definition, what is uncured bacon ? And, perhaps more importantly for the average bacon enthusiasts’ needs, is there a difference between the two? In a world with so many different types of bacon, it can be hard to know if the difference between cured and uncured bacon is real or some kind of marketing ploy, especially since it can be challenging to tell which type you’re eating if you’re just handed a slice.

• Your taste buds aren’t deceiving you because the difference between cured and uncured bacon pretty negligible.
• You could even argue that uncured bacon doesn’t really exist.
• As Melanie Abel, director of marketing at Smithfield Foods, the leading U.S.
• Producer of packaged pork products, explained, “Since all bacon is preserved with either smoke or salt, there really is no such thing as uncured bacon.

It’s kind of like a myth.” The difference between the two types of bacon, then, comes down to the way in which the pork is preserved. Cured bacon is made by adding artificial nitrates, usually sodium nitrite, into the regular salt and brine mixture. That added sodium nitrite is an important ingredient in the curing process because it helps prevent the growth of bacteria on the meat itself, but nitrates and nitrites have gotten a bad rap ever since the World Health Organization announced that processed meats might cause colorectal cancer in October 2015.

1. Those health concerns about carcinogens in bacon are part of the reason uncured bacon has seen a jump in popularity—because uncured bacon is made without added or artificial nitrates and nitrites.
2. But contrary to popular belief, uncured bacon is not nitrate-free because, as Abel explained, “You’re using sea salt or celery powder to achieve those naturally-occurring nitrates.” After about a week of curing, those nitrates will show up in your bacon whether you’ve added them artificially or not, least of all because celery salt is a naturally occurring nitrate.

So if it’s not about the nitrates, then the difference between cured and uncured bacon really comes down to taste and preference. Uncured bacon is, generally, left in a more natural, green state than cured bacon and so tastes more like the pork belly itself.

It’s also often saltier than cured bacon because the pork has to sit in the brine for longer in order to get to the same level of preservation. But even that can be a subtle difference since curing is only one of many steps that must be taken before you can have a slice on your griddle. “It’s a combination of the curing and smoking that will give you the different, rich flavor,” said Abel.

Everything you Need to Know About Smoking Bacon

“Smithfield bacon, for example, is all-natural smoked with hickory chips, and that’s what’s really going to bring that taste to life,” not the curing process. Even famed Benton’s Hickory Smoked Country Bacon gets most of its oomph from the smoking process rather than the cure.
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Is raw bacon smoked?

Pretty much any bacon you buy comes already smoked and cured, same as ham right? I eat it raw on occasion and have never gotten sick. The only ‘raw feeling’ i ever get is from the fat itself, the meat just reminds me of ham. However, on all the packages of bacon it says to thoroughly cook.
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Nathalie Bergh