
Most Uncured Bacon Is a Lie - bcaulfield
https://thetakeout.com/uncured-bacon-label-nitrates-nitrites-celery-1834215295
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jmpman
The uncured Bacon producers aren’t using HACCP approved processes (to the best
of my knowledge) Botulism is only killed at very elevated salt concentrations,
which may exist on the surface of a salt/sugar cured pork belly, but nowhere
high enough on the interior. Any process that uses mechanical injection of
brine could drive those spores into the meat interior where it’s not subject
to the required salt concentrations. Hanging hooks could drive botulism spores
into the interior. The data on salt concentrations required to kill botulism
spores is weak, so it’s unlikely any which are on the interior will be killed.
Then during cold smoke temps, botulism spores will burst forth and begin
multiplying rapidly, without the required salt concentration to control them.
Luckily, properly fried bacon is cooked at a temperature high enough to kill
botulism toxin. Unfortunately, not all bacon is cooked in the manner. A James
Beard award winning restaurant uses uncured bacon in their ramen broth base
(I’m assuming it’s prepared at temp/time which aren’t sufficient to deactivate
the botulism toxin). It’s delicious, but I don’t understand how the bacon
could be processed to eliminate all risk. I happily eat it because nobody has
yet fallen ill, but I haven’t found the science which supports this method of
processing.

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mc32
Isn’t pork belly essentially uncured bacon (albeit not sliced)?

