“The bacon came from happy pigs just down the road,” I announced to our guests at Easter brunch.
“Yep, happy until they were made into bacon!” my dear husband quipped.
Thanks, hon.
I like to try to share real food and local food notes when I serve a good meal, not to be elitist or pompous, but to try to pass along little lessons.
Bacon has been featured for two sets of visitors in the past few weeks, each time with “happy pig” and “no nitrites” announcements (and a small dose of pride in serving good food), and let me tell you: we’ve loved it.
Bacon has been one of those foods that has fallen by the wayside in our new “real food” lifestyle, along with chicken breasts and spaghetti night. It’s just too expensive to use the good stuff very often, so it’s been an occasional indulgence, much enjoyed.
Now the $7/pound I spent is tarnishing the delicious memories. Guess what? Nitrites are good for you!
It kind of (really) ticks me off that I’ve been avoiding/afraid of/wary of nitrites for years now, paying triple and quadruple the price to get lunchmeat and bacon without them, or just avoiding cured meats altogether, and it turns out I’ve (perhaps) been duped.
The story starts here (link no longer works), with Harvard researchers announcing red meat will kill you (Really? This is news?) and cured meats will kill you faster, moves to this response deconstructing the study and destroying the basis of the claims, then goes on to Gary Taubes (link no longer works) for his wordy and apt dissension to Harvard’s media circus, takes a quick stop at Mark’s Daily Apple for a sarcastic and pointed handling of the case from folks who eat more meat than anyone (Primal/Paleo diet), and finally lands on the resurrection yet destruction of the world of bacon as we know it.
Drat.
Just when I was excited to be able to eat bacon again. (It’s easier to serve joyfully with bacon!)
Now celery salt is the new demon stalking your breakfast. Pun intended.
This article, from the Weston A. Price Foundation, states the general rebuttals about how red meat is great for your health and pork fat is actually mostly monounsaturated and good for you. Save your bacon grease to cook veggies and other yummy things in. This, I knew. So far, so good.
Then the author, Dr. Kaylaa Daniel, begins to explain how nitrites are good for you. In summary:
- our bodies need nitrites in the form of nitric oxide, which we make from nitrite
- it may be why all those folks who ate bacon for breakfast every day lived such a long life
- regular old store bacon is still bad for you, unfortunately, as they speed up the curing process too much (among other things)
- “uncured” nitrate/nitrite-free bacon is anything but – the celery salt used to cure the meat in this “new” method actually creates more nitrites than nitrite (or something like that; the article is worth reading yourself!)
The bottom line is that only traditionally crafted bacon, month-long cured with sodium nitrite, is good for you now.
Why am I just hearing this for the first time???
Anyone know where to find pastured, NOT nitrate-free bacon, but slow-cured, with traditional nitrates?
Sigh.
Back to plain old eggs for breakfast.
See my full disclosure statement here.
Katie Kimball, CSME is a trusted educator and author of 8 real food cookbooks. She is passionate about researching natural remedies and making healthy cooking easier for busy families. She’s been featured on media outlets like ABC, NBC and First for Women magazine as well as contributing regularly on the FOX Network.
A mom of 4 kids from Michigan, she is a Certified Stress Mastery Educator and member of the American Institute of Stress.
Marie says
I’ve been buying plain ol’ pork belly from a local butcher and when I fry it up I add a smoked salt, pepper and a touch of maple syrup. Tastes like regular bacon to us!
Amy says
I do!! The guy/place I get my milk from sells grass fed meat- beef, chicken, pork, lamb, etc. The two things we learned: plain, boring, uncured bacon is …well, somewhat boring. Also, uncured ham tastes like pork (does that make sense…it was white instead of pink). But, it was very very yummy once we figured it out!! I am in Pennsylvania though, so I do not think that helps you:o( sorry!
I am working on figuring out lunchmeat now. (from the post I read that linked up to this post) . I didn’t realize that celery salt being used was bad:/ oops. we only eat it very occasionally, although it has increased this month due to the heat and not wanting to cook lunch in a hot house after a hot day outside. I’m trying to come up with other ideas, like using beans for my daughter and I, since my hubby gets first dibs on leftovers!
Katie Kimball @ Kitchen Stewardship says
Amy,
I got some uncured “ham” from my farmer, too, thought it might turn out like pork but cooked it for breakfast anyway. Looked like pork, smelled like pork…but I still said we were having ham for breakfast b/c my husband hates pork! He kind of figured it out…ha! 🙂 Katie
Michaela says
Does the same apply for sausage and ham? Okay if its traditionally cured with sodium nitrite?
Katie Kimball @ Kitchen Stewardship says
Michaela,
I think so – it will just be tough to find trad’ly cured stuff…
🙂 Katie
Sara R says
Sorry, that last comment was supposed to be in reply to the commenter who talked about her grandfathers diet. For some reason my computer wont’ let me comment on the comments.
Sara R says
This was such a fun comment to read. Thanks for sharing. My grandmother lived to almost 101 and I suspect had a similar diet.
Lauren says
We have a great sausage & bacon artisan here in Chattanooga – Link 41. They use only salt, sugar and smoke & the pigs are local. $10/lb is a bit heavy on the wallet but it’s SO GOOD.
Or you could just do it this way – http://asonomagarden.wordpress.com/2011/12/05/making-local-bacon/
Joyce says
OK, I just got this from the article: “The takeaway here is to choose traditionally cured artisanal bacon.” Does anyone know the names of any brands that fit this criteria that are commercially available?
thanks,
Joyce
John says
My dad has liver problems, and eating bacon used to give him a lot of trouble. That was until he discovered that if he boiled it first, and then sent it to the frying pan, and didn’t bother him at all. When he fried it in the pan, it still got nice and crispy, just like normal. (and he still got plenty of bacon grease out of it.) His theory was that the chemicals and pollutants were going into the boiling water instead of into him.
Kathryn says
What I don’t get is the celery juice cure causes more nitrates so it’s bad, but nitrates are good for you disconnect. I think the idea of curing something in celery juice is fantastic. Celery juice! Maybe it’s not traditional, but how could celery juice be something to avoid? Really?
We moved to the USA from Britain – where it’s pretty easy to get proper bacon – and spent some time trawling through grocery store bacon to find some that tasted decent. The only brand any of us could rate was a celery juice cure. Now I know, it being a grocery store brand, that neither animal welfare nor nutrition are on the agenda, and I’m glad to say that I’ve found a local source of traditional bacon. I’m also glad to have a stamp of approval to ease my affluenzed mind about the subject of bacon.
Kim says
great news on nitrites–thank you! But still in a quandry about how to source such meat. Farmers market seems the most likely place. I wonder if the backlash against nitrites is going to give us nitrite-free bacon on the shelves soon, but then we’ll still have to worry how it’s cured? It can just never be easy, can it?
Why no spaghetti, though? With our grass-fed beef spaghetti is still a staple in our home, and not expensive.
Katie Kimball @ Kitchen Stewardship says
Kim,
Mostly because of the soaked/unsoaked thing first, then a gluten intolerance and just trying to cut down on grains in general. We do pasta sometimes, but it’s much more rare than it used to be!!
🙂 Katie
Jenie via Facebook says
Lol, I know how you feel! 🙂
Kyla says
Try an Amish butcher shop. They (at least around my parts) slow cure more naturally.
Louise Malbon-Reddix says
Wow! Changed my view!
Mandy says
I didn’t read all the comments so this may have been mentioned. But I recently read an article about nitrates not so bad and celery whatever 😉 bad. But it was mentioned in this article that drinking oj or just eating oranges with the nitrates help counter act the bad. I don’t remember the website. Worth researching though. 🙂
Mandy says
Nitrates, nitrites don’t remember which
Laura says
I’m not buying this, honestly. I respect the WAPF, but I think they’re wrong on this one.
As for sodium nitrites:
1. I can’t make it in my own kitchen or grow it in my back yard, which is one of my requirements for distinguishing what a healthy food is.
2. It isn’t a traditional food.
3. The only purpose of the “nitrite” portion of the salt seems to be to preserve the pink color of the meat, which seems an irrelevant concern to me. It’s much like adding sulfites to dried fruits to preserve their colors, and sulfites are bad news as well. (Why do we spend so much of our time caring about the color of our food anyway? And to our great detriment, with all of the food dyes and preservatives to make everything look factory perfect.)
4. It makes lots of people sick, while celery juice does not. My fiance throws up every time he has commercial sodium nitrites. He has no such reaction to Applegate Farms uncured hot dogs (that contain celery powder).
Katie Kimball @ Kitchen Stewardship says
Laura,
VERY good call on the “real food” definition; something important to me as well. I was so bamboozled reading that article that I couldn’t even process my response other than “Whaaaaa?” You did it very nicely for me, thank you! 🙂 Katie
Laura says
You’re very welcome! Honestly, I probably think about eating healthy too much for my own good, so I’ve thought a lot of these issues through in advance. It makes me look clever when the discussions arise! 🙂
Amelia says
Honestly, I’m a fellow science geek, so I never understood why nitrites = bad when your own saliva has hundreds of times the amount of nitrites that a few conventional hot dogs do. Truly uncured “bacon” tastes like fatty pork chops and that’s the only pastured kind I could find around here, so I bought a pork belly and cured it myself.
It was delicious and now I can make any flavor I please! The only cons were 1) the pastured pork belly was leaner than we’d like and 2) since we don’t have a meat slicer and aren’t likely to acquire one soon, the options for us are to have awkwardly thick slices that don’t fry up the way we want or to slice it in the food processor and get very short strips.
So, unconventionally, my real food kitchen has for some time been stocked with sodium nitrite-laced curing salt. 🙂
Karin Uebbing says
This is something I didn’t know! As a farmer I am always adjusting to the next “new” thing. But I’ve also had the “real” thing salted and smoked on farm. No processor can beat it or recreate it. The unfortunate thing is I have to follow USDA law in order to sell my meat to a consumer. I feel like every thing I do or want to do is a “no, no”! So I see my job as trying to get the processor to do it “traditionally”. I see this as being VERY expensive but I’m more then willing to try!
Lucy says
The KS attitude has changed a lot since I started following this blog. Elitism has no more place at the dinner table than artificial food dyes do.
Katie Kimball @ Kitchen Stewardship says
Lucy,
Hmmmm, I hope not as much as you say. I did joke about “liking” sounding elitist, but really I just meant that I was proud to be able to serve healthy food to my guests, and that’s something you can’t tell just by looking at the bacon. When I first started writing KS, I was just learning that bacon was bad for me and not sure what to do about the fact that I loved it…so I’ve learned a lot and continue to learn, but I think my basic mission – to be a good steward of the earth and my family’s health and budget – remains the same. But – I’ve been gently corrected by many a reader over the years for leaning too far toward a certain direction and falling out of balance, so I’m always open to thoughts and comments, truly. Thank you, Katie
Katie Kimball @ Kitchen Stewardship says
Also – when I started writing KS, I never gave a second thought to artificial food dyes. Didn’t really until just a few months ago, in fact. I’m always learning and adjusting and re-adjusting!
Lori says
I agree that it seems every week there is a new study that shows that so and so food causes cancer or worse. I do not buy into all the nonsense, but go by what I have observed.
My grandfather passed away in 2001 at age 91, and he lived a healthy and good life with no health issues except for macular degeneration. He and my grandma were married for 44 years before she passed away at age 68 of cancer (tumor in the throat~she’d been heavy smoker of non-filtered cigarettes).
My grandpa was born in 1910, grew up eating lard in his biscuits, real butter, eggs from backyard chickens, and he always grew his own vegetables and fruits, though he ate a lot of home-canned foods year-round.
Every morning for most of his life this is what he ate for breakfast: Monday through Friday he would eat Oscar Mayer bacon (the only kind he would buy as he liked it best. I am NOT advocating any particular brands on here, I am merely sharing what exactly he ate), at least 3-4 slices, a fried egg in the left over bacon grease, toast on white bread with real butter, coffee with half and half and a bit of sugar.
On Saturdays he would either have the same breakfast as above or a bowl of Wheaties.
On Sundays he would have buckwheat pancakes and sausage patties or links with real maple syrup and plenty of real butter.
When I say real butter, I mean butter that the milk man would deliver (Borden) or what they bought from the store when the milk man became obsolete in the late 70’s.
Everyday for lunch when he worked (till age 65), my grandpa took boiled ham (Plumrose brand), with plenty of butter on both sides of his white bread as a condiment as he did not like real condiments. A thermos of coffee laced with sugar and half and half, a homemade pie or a store bought cake of some kind (think Banana Flips, Moon Pies, or Blue Bird brand pies).
For dinner he ate potatoes at every meal (mainly mashed with whole milk and real butter), a piece of pork or beef (he would not eat chicken or other poultry after having been exposed to them (dressed out) for weeks while wiring a store back in the 1940’s), and would eat a slice of ham, a fried pork chop. a baked round steak, a hamburger, etc. He would once in awhile have a few homemade french fries or au gratin potatoes, but 98% of the time mashed ones.
My grandpa also ate fresh tomatoes, green onions, and radishes at every dinner throughout the summer months that came from his garden. He grew a huge garden and my grandma cooked and canned all that produce~thousands of jars as she put up stewed tomatoes, green beans, limas, vegetable soup base, peas, grape jelly, grape juice, apple juice, applesauce, cherries for pies, peaches, pears, quince jelly, and all the fresh fruits as they came in season. My grandma also made pies, cobblers, tarts, and other goodies from the many fruit trees they had.
They grew 5 varieties of apples, two tart cherry trees, peaches, plums, pears, quince, had a grape arbor, a summer garden, a side spring garden, and usually bought their eggs from the farm down the road.
At age 85 my grandpa had a physical and he was deemed to have the endurance, strength, and health of a 65 year old.
He smoked most of his life (age 16-65) and then went cold turkey when he retired as he decided it would no longer fit his budget.
He was an electrician by trade, a trouble shooter in his company, and he also did all the work around his 1 1/2 acre lot in the country. He was agile, normal weight, and healthy his entire life.
He ate many foods not considered healthy, never took supplements, did not end up on a host of medicines (except drops for his eyes) as most seniors do, and stayed healthy till shortly before he passed when he slowed down a lot.
He ate what he wanted, though in moderation (he was never a huge eater as he never piled his plate as some men are want to do), and he ate what he was in the mood to eat, which means he had pie, cake, cookies, or ice cream most nights for a snack. A dip of ice cream or a few cookies or a piece of Boston Cream Pie is what he liked. He also liked chocolate and had at least one small block from a Hershey bar most days (when the Hershey bars still came in an 8 ounce bar) and he would limit himself to this one piece.
He never had sugar problems.
He never had heart problems.
He never had lung problems.
He never had gastric problems.
He never had circulation problems.
He never took a host of pharmaceuticals.
He never lost his memory or had dementia of any kind.
He worked for the same company for 34 years and only missed 6 weeks (in 1961) when he broke his foot, and never missed any other days due to illness as he was never sick.
He drank tons of coffee daily and the percolator was on all day long.
He lived a long and healthy life eating foods we are told will kill us or make us ill.
What I learned from my grandpa is to eat in moderation a variety of foods, and to listen to your body. Stay active, read, make God and family first, in that order, and reason things out without falling for all the hype that comes from the ‘experts’ in the media.
So back in the 1980’s when the media said eggs were bad for you because of the cholesterol, I continued to eat eggs and so did grandpa. He’d been eating them since around age 7 months when his mom would poach their home-grown eggs and mix it in with some toasted bread to feed her babies.
I’m sorry, this is long, and I do try to eat as healthy and real of food as I can, but I refuse to allow others to dictate what I eat based on faulty/and/or popular myths of the day.
I do try to eat pastured meats and fresh veggies; avoid GMO foods, MSG, HFCS, and regular table salt. However, I also try to live within a reasonable budget and will buy the bacon I find from the store when that is all I can afford (we eat it once or twice a month), and will buy certain brands of breads from the store since I do not have time to make my own.
I think it is safe to say we eat pretty healthy considering.
Anyway, just some of my thoughts on this issue.
Chantelle says
When my son (not officially diagnosed ADHD, but is) has bacon he goes crazy like when he has food dye. We now avoid it.
Gail Aubertin Brunt says
I recently read some articles on this subject- and basically came away still not sure about the safety of nitrites. My grandfather was a butcher and used to make bacon. I wish there was some way to know how he did it! I just remember seeing the barrels with salt-like stuff crusted on the rims. One source I read said that there is no other way to cure meat than using sodium nitrite, and even celery juice (not salt) contains nitrites.
Tamara says
Grins, to each their own I say, we raise our own beef and hogs and the butcher we use is trusted. I don’t pay attention to studies or research because for us it tends to just not really include how we eat daily. We don’t eat meat daily, we don’t eat bacon daily nor consume much in the way of processed foods with the exceptions of a few things and seriously, I don’t give a fig. I feel as long as we know what is going into our livestock and produce we grow, that is good enough for me and mine.
Kate @ Modern Alternative Mama says
Skip it and buy pastured fresh side. 🙂 That is what we typically have done!
I just found a very nice semi-local butcher (it’s on the other side of the city, a good 30-minute drive, but I think it’s worth it). It’s all locally and humanely raised meat and the prices are very reasonable, so I’m going with it.
Katie Kimball @ Kitchen Stewardship says
Kate – what does pastured fresh side taste like? Is there that classic bacon flavor, or just like pork? How do you cook it? Thanks for the new idea! 🙂 Katie
Kate @ Modern Alternative Mama says
It honestly doesn’t taste like much of anything, and we didn’t like it plain. I found when I salted it prior to cooking, though, it sort of tasted bacon-y and we liked it well enough. 🙂 It is brown, though, not pink/red, because there’s no cure.
Bebe says
Well, that’s a real game changer. As for me and my house? I’ve been buying my bacon from U.S. Wellness meats because they use neither nitrites nor celery juice/salt and it’s the closest I can find to pastured pork and THAT is what I believe to be the crux of the matter. Everything about the pork changes when you compare meat from confinement operations to meat from pasture operations. Until I can find a source closer to home I’m sticking with what I’m using now and eating my bacon with gusto!
As to the price of good bacon, I just changed the way I serve it. Occasionally I will serve slices of bacon but usually I fry up just a few slices and chop it up to distribute throughout whatever I’m serving: scrambled eggs or omelets, pasta carbonara, salads, whatever. It just goes further. I agree with what Kaayla Daniel said about bad studies. It’s the same thing Matt Stone says about them: you can always find one to support your point.
Tamara says
We butcher our own hogs and take the “bacon” to the local butcher who cures it. It does take a month and I don’t care as it only runs about 50 bucks for 50 lbs. I know that he uses a super secret recipe he won’t give out LOL. We don’t eat bacon alot and consider it a treat if we do. So I don’t worry too much about nitrates etc…Just my 2 cents. Sometimes its nice to be bad or eat bad LOL
Cathy says
I’m curious about the actual nitrate and nitrite levels in each product. I was just out doing a water sampling field trip today and we used nitrate/nitrite test strips, which are about $8 for a pack of 25. I may order a new bottle and test some bacon or sausage and some vegetables–according to one test-strip manufacturer kohlrabi has quite a bit–just to see how much nitrate/nitrite we’re talking about.
Katie Kimball @ Kitchen Stewardship says
Cathy,
Oh, my goodness, my science geek heart just skipped a beat. Where does one find these strips? And in case I have a little too much on my plate and no room for bacon research (which is true), if you test veggies and bacon, pleeeeease pretty please would you email me your results? That would be so cool! Thank you! Katie (kitchenstew at gmail.com)
Cathy says
I’m happy to email you my results if I get a chance to test some things. Here’s the link I was looking at when trying to figure out if I could use the test strips to test food: http://www.mn-net.com/tabid/10930/default.aspx
And as far as getting the test strips, I got the AquaChek ones because that’s what the USDA Soil Quality Test Kit listed. But they’re also nice because you can find them easily online, or at pet stores or in pool supply stores if you’re lucky. I think the pet store in my town had some but they were a different brand and the range at which it measured looked different.
Lanna says
I’m not 100% on their curing process, but if they’ve been doing the same thing for 100 years… http://www.independentmeat.com/falls-brand/bacon/
This has by far been the best bacon we’ve ever found (and skinless hot dogs, too!). Doesn’t hurt that they’re somewhat local-ish to me (well, a state away or so).
Molly says
I am discovering at an older age (I’m older than most of you) that I have more and more auto immune reactions to foods. So I will continue to stay away from nitrates and MSG. It all affects me.
I will be starting an elimination diet soon that will take out grains, legumes, dairy and nightshades. Not looking forward to this but hey its cheap than trips to the pharmacy for yuck medicine. I am completely freaked out about giving up dairy. I’ve been grain free for the better part of a year. And I live in Indiana which is nirvana for homegrown tomatoes. We all have to give up some things to help ourselves.
I am hoping that after being on the elimination for awhile, I will be able to slowly add somethings back in!! 🙂
Courtney says
I just don’t understand…how long have farmers/butchers been using nitrites?? I’m sure that there were bad things in diets hundreds of years ago…maybe it was nitrites? I don’t know, we are blessed to have very little issues with our health, and while we have all noticed we “feel better” we never really felt “bad”. Bacon has always been part of my 20% food compromise and we eat it maybe monthly at most. It’s easier to find healthy sausages anyway. I’m just confused…but I’ve been that way lately. Stacy posted about not soaking her grains yesterday, and now we are hearing that nitrites arent bad. I’m afraid to hear what’s next. (she says while throwing up her hands!!)
Katie Kimball @ Kitchen Stewardship says
Courtney,
Yeah, I throw up my hands a lot about what we eat. That’s pretty much what this post IS, one great big wordy “Arg!”
😉 Katie
Chelsea Wipf says
I disagree with you on the statement that “sodium nitrite is good for you”. The WAPF article says nowhere that it is good for you, only that it is better than risking the celery juice curing which is impossible to control how much nitrite is actually being used. When sodium nitrite is used in curing, only a small amount is needed and can be strictly controlled, while celery juice curing is all over the board on how much nitrite might actually be being used. There is no way to control it. Traditional SEA SALT curing will always be the best way to go (and the way that I use for my home curing for an out of this world taste), but unfortunately is pretty difficult to find and when found is pricy 🙁
Katie Kimball @ Kitchen Stewardship says
Chelsea,
I tried to read that part pretty carefully, although quickly, I admit – but the part on NO (nitric oxide) surely seemed to say that our bodies need nitrites and often don’t have enough of them properly. ???
I wonder if the US Wellness Meats bacon, mentioned above as just “pork, sea salt” is salt-cured and thus the best bet. It sounds good to me! 🙂 Katie
Andi says
We have been eating the nitrate free stuff, for ham and bacon when we gave it. I was a little surprised when I was asking the Rakowski’s (whom we get our pastured chickens, eggs and sometimes beef from) at our local farmer’s market about their bacon and ham, and she said it is cured with nitrates (or nitrites, I can’t keep those things straight). She told me some of the same things you said here. It is definitely something to think about. All I really know for sure is that when I eat the regular stuff, I get a migraine, and when I eat the “uncured” variety, I don’t.
Katie Kimball @ Kitchen Stewardship says
Andi,
Did you ever try the bacon or ham from Rakowski’s, then? did it give you a headache? We had their bacon once but just didn’t love the flavor, so haven’t been back. ??? 🙂 katie
Andi says
Thanks for asking, Katie! No, I didn’t. Since I know my usual reaction I just stayed away. BUT, It lead to a great conversation about home-curing ham. Jinny Rakowski has a friend who has a recipe for ‘curing’ her own hams with (if I remember right): Apple cider vinegar, sea salt and honey. While she herself hasn’t tried it, her friend thinks it is amazing. It is on my list of things to do to get that recipe from her and order one of her uncured hams to try it on! Given that my kids are on GAPS, it would be better to have honey-cured ham than sugar-cured (not that we eat a lot of ham anyway). Blessings!
Cheryl says
And what about “those studies” that show the correlation between processed meats and colon cancer?! I recently came across a source for semi-local, small batch curing of the piggies. They don’t use nitrites, either. I would still think that nitrites in their natural state would be better than those which we make up and add to our foods.
Personally, I feel sick after eating much processed meat, no matter the source. Un-cured bacon from the stores seem to be better, but maybe it is all in my head? lol
April says
Well shoot. Katie, this is one of those times I *almost* regret reading your post. 🙂 We’ve been buying the nitrate free bacon at the regular grocery, figuring it’s a “step up” from the “bad stuff.” Now I don’t know what we’ll do. Of course, I say that but we’d get it MAYBE once every couple months, when it was on sale. Oh, well, guess it’s just eggs for us too!
Katie Kimball @ Kitchen Stewardship says
April,
Or…just include the bacon in the 20% part of 80/20 and enjoy the heck out of it! 😉 Katie
Karen says
I no longer pay attention to all the studies. What is good for you one week will kill you the next. And there is a lot of money to be made doing studies, depending on who is paying to have it done. Somebody is always footing the bill, so don’t expect an unbiased result.
All that ever really happens is that food made the way it was made BEFORE industrialized food, eventually emerges as the safest so that is always my final objective.
If that means I make mayonnaise or do without, that’s okay. It is an ongoing process here of eliminating foods that have been through a factory and replacing them with food made the old fashioned, and yes, sometimes hard way. I don’t panic over things that I haven’t got around to addressing yet, because I will get to them eventually. There is a learning curve involved and new skills to master, and sometimes those are the things that will influence my choice of “next project”. Sometimes a health issue changes my plans. Either way, it is all good. And if we don’t get to good right away, it is still better.
Bebe says
Well said. Thank you for letting your voice be heard.
Lauren says
Isn’t the problem sodium nitrAte, not nitrIte?
Katie Kimball @ Kitchen Stewardship says
Lauren,
You know, I remember reading some differentiation between the two a while ago, but I can’t keep them straight…so I’ve always just lumped them together anyway. ??? Read the WAPF article for the full story. Katie
Pam says
What is the word on frying fresh, plain, sliced pork belly from pastured pigs? I just picked up a bunch of tomato plants while daydreaming about BLTs…
Katie Kimball @ Kitchen Stewardship says
Pam,
I can’t imagine there would be anything wrong with that! 🙂 Katie
Brandis says
Sorry to point you toward that article:) I’ve decided to find the best bacon I can afford (sometimes nitrate free, sometimes, not, pastured as often as possible), enjoy it, and not stress about it. Like you said in that last post, you don’t want to give yourself a heart attack worrying about what food will keep you healthiest (that’s paraphrasing what you said, but YKWIM!). But bacon is one of the things I enjoy the most. We eat it about once every two weeks, which I feel is pretty moderate, but I do use the bacon fat to cook a lot of my veggies (I just roasted asparagus with it and some garlic the other day and OMG, about the best thing I’ve ever tasted… for about a week after we had it my three year old, who had never liked asparagus before, kept asking when we could have more of “that green stuff”) and when I make the white sauce for my mac-n-cheese.
I have made lard before, but I don’t like to. A) I don’t use it as often as I should, partly because what I made wasn’t perfect, hence it tastes and smells like pork when it’s cooked, and I just don’t care for that taste (or smell). And I didn’t like making it. It’s too finicky for my patience level and the smell, which seemed pretty inoffensive at first, REALLY started to bother me by the end of the process.
Katie Kimball @ Kitchen Stewardship says
Brandis,
Yeah, this is all y our fault! 😉 j/k
On the bacon grease and asparagus, I KNOW. So amazing. I’ve been sauteeing asp and green beans in bacon grease since last summer, and I just love it. Never tried roasting in the oven, though, that would be an interesting change…
Let’s just assume that the bacon grease isn’t affected by the nitrites or lack thereof and continue to enjoy our veggies in blissful ignorance, shall we?
😉 Katie
Alice via Facebook says
We’ve got a shop here in Houston that sells traditionally cured meats that they make in-house. There’s even a window on the front of their meat curing room where you can see all the meat hanging. 🙂 One of the shop owners raises the pork himself on a ranch just south of town, and it’s organic and 100% pastured. The bacon is really expensive, but worth it.
Sharon says
There’s a pig farmer at our local farmer’s market whose bacon fits the bill. Not cheap, but well worth it once in a while… Now, if I could just convince him to make lard (I really don’t like the idea of making it at home, pots full of hot fat scare me)!
Jennifer says
We just made our first batch of leaf lard and it turned out amazing. So simple you’ll wonder why you hadn’t done it earlier.
Elizabeth says
I don’t know enough to speak to whether it’s traditionally prepared or not, but I order my bacon online from US Wellness. Their bacon is just pork and sea salt if you get the sugar free kind, and it tastes amazing. It is hickory smoked.
Katie Kimball @ Kitchen Stewardship says
Elizabeth,
We had US Wellness’s bacon once, and it got high marks from the fam! 🙂 Katie
Kathleen K says
Very interesting. If I understand you correctly, the OLD way of preparing the meats was the GOOD way. That is consistent with what we read in Nourishing Traditions. As a general rule, our family chooses to avoid pork products. I figure if the Lord told the Hebrews they weren’t to touch it, there must be something bad in it. And that there aren’t any nutrients in pork that cannot be obtained elsewhere. That said, on those very rare occasions that we’ll eat bacon, I’ll source it from a local farmer who slow cures. (Which I may not find, which means no bacon!)
Jeanne G. says
I love bacon and so does my husband… I hope I can find a source for that traditional bacon.
Paula via Facebook says
My favorite quote from Jole Salatin “my animals had a really good life and one bad day” LOL
Becky says
Honestly, I have a tough time believing that nitrites are okay. It’s pretty well established that nitrite-containing foods are a serious migraine trigger for many people, myself included. I won’t be hopping back on nitrites any time soon.
Christy says
I agree. Sodium nitrite bothers a lot of people. I don’t understand that one. …Frustrating! I feel like this is one of those going around in circles issues…and maybe one day we’ll finally discover a clear answer.
We just eat bacon occasionally–nitrite free. And I think I will continue with that. Everything–well, MOST things–in moderation has kind of become my theme. We eat so much quality real food that at this point I think I’m okay adding in a little bacon now and again for some crispy flavor.
But it definitely was an interesting read, and it will also be in the back of my head I know. I’m always trying to read and learn more, and this one was definitely a new one for me.
Stephanie says
Wow! Thanks for this. We have given up bacon because I can’t find it nitrite free. I have no idea where to find it slow cured either.
jul says
hi,
i don’t know if it’s got the potentially horrible celery kind of nitrite instead or not, but i found uncured or nitrite free turkey bacon at costco. please don’t somebody take away this new found delight too….?
Katie Kimball @ Kitchen Stewardship says
Jul,
Beats me…you’ll have to read the WAPF article and decide for yourself…I’m still eating bacon, though! 😉 Katie