Are Nitrites in Bacon Bad for You?

Published on Wednesday, July 22, 2009, by CHOW Video Team / Edit Post

Are Nitrites in Bacon Bad for You?

Like sulfites in wine, the health implications of nitrites in cured meat trigger a lot of discussion. Scott Kveton, founder of Bacn.com, shares this tip: If you drink orange juice while eating bacon, the vitamin C helps neutralize some of the ill effects of nitrites on your system. (But please, we’re not doctors. If you want to eat bacon all day every day, you should talk to a physician.)

CHOW Tips are the shared wisdom of our community. If you’ve figured out some piece of food, drink, or cooking wisdom that you’d like to share on video (and you can be in San Francisco), email Meredith Arthur and tell us what you’ve got in mind.

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  • Yes, but you have to eat the bacon in ridiculously enormous quantities every day, forever. And the degree of "done-ness" of the bacon affects the nitrite levels. Crispy is worse for you than chewy. However...the fat, high sodium and other adverse health issues from eating that much bacon for that long are gonna kill you way sooner than the cancer from the nitrites.

  • Has it really been shown to cause cancer?

  • In the video, he says that citric acid partially neutralizes the effect of nitrites; in the description in says 'vitamin C' does. Vitamin C is ascorbic acid, not citric. So presumably anything citrusy would do the trick...

  • Nitrite-free simply means they're not adding straight nitrites to the meat. You'll notice on the ingredients that most if not all "nitrite-free" products contain celery juice.

    Harold McGee writes: "So ingenious manufacturers figured out how to replace the pure chemicals with a mix of nitrate-rich vegetable extracts and bacterial cultures that convert the nitrate into nitrite. (Celery-juice...+READ

    Nitrite-free simply means they're not adding straight nitrites to the meat. You'll notice on the ingredients that most if not all "nitrite-free" products contain celery juice.

    Harold McGee writes: "So ingenious manufacturers figured out how to replace the pure chemicals with a mix of nitrate-rich vegetable extracts and bacterial cultures that convert the nitrate into nitrite. (Celery-juice powder, for one, is especially rich in nitrate and has little flavor of its own.) As a result, natural and organic hot dogs that once were quite drab are starting to look better."

    So in other words, enjoy your daily dose of nitrites in your nitrite-free bacon.-COLLAPSE

  • You can find nitrite/nitrate-free bacon (as well as nitrite/nitrate-free sausage, hot dogs, and lunch meat) at places like Trader Joe's and Whole Foods. These are the only ones I buy now.