Wouldn’t uncured bacon (meaning ingredients would only be bacon, salt and flavoring if necessary) technically be healthy because the nitrates/additives are removed? The saturated fat is coming from a natural source, and sodium is not as much a concern as previously believed.
Edit: by “healthy” (I know that is a generic term) I mean not harmful to health, as in compounds couldn’t cause cancer or diseases. However, I understand it’s hard to determine those things.
“Healthy” is not like an on/off switch. Something is not either healthy or it isn’t. “Healthy” is like a volume dial - it can be not healthy at all, very healthy, or any level of healthy in between.
Does bacon have no nutritional value whatsoever? Of course not. So it’s not entirely unhealthy. Is it a superfood that you could survive on without eating anything else and live to 130? Also no. It’s somewhere in between. Uncured without nitrates/nitrites is going to be more healthy that bacon prepared other ways.
It’s like any other high calorie low nutrient food- eat it here and there in moderate amounts. probably a good idea to pair it with nutritional foods like maybe throwing it in with potatoes and eggs and veggies and it’s perfectly good. Probably not a good idea to eat it everyday on with something else also high in calories like a lot of people do such as a bacon cheeseburger.
On social media, nutrition information is geared to be contrarian or tell people what they want to hear. So I would be very skeptical about the idea that natural saturated fat or sodium is okay.
The American Heart Association recommends no more than 6% calories from saturated fat and 2300mg sodium per day.
Saturated fats coming from a natural source doesn’t remove the possible health risks one would have from eating saturated fats. Doesn’t mean you should not ever eat saturated fats, just means your saturated fat isn’t any healthier if it’s coming from bacon rather than say beef jerky.
What is ‘healthy’ ?
First thing that’s wrong is you’ve fallen for the Naturalistic fallacy; the idea that everything found in nature is good. Its certainly isn’t the case. Fat is 100% natural, its very calorie dense, eating a lot of it will mean you’re eating a lot of calories and could lead to weight gain. However you NEED fat in your diet.
If you can fit 2-3 slices of bacon into your meal plan without exceeding your goals of daily calories, there’s nothing wrong with it. If you eat a pound of bacon every morning and then play video games all day , you will probably gain a lot of weight.
I think it depends on what specifically your health concerns are because there are drawbacks to all things even healthy things BUT yeah just nutritionally speaking if you’re using portion control there ain’t nothin wrong w a lil bacon.
Also don’t fall for the marketing trap of “nitrate-free” or “uncured” bacon from the grocery store. When they use sea salt and celery powder to cure the pork belly, the result is basically the same as using nitrates.
https://www.foodnetwork.com/healthyeats/news/is-nitrate-free-uncured-meat-healthy
“Uncured” bacon usually has celery salt, which is a non-synethic version of what’s used to cure “normal” bacon. The body recognizes the chemical compound as it is, regardless of whether the curing agent was synthetic or non-synethic.
Even “uncured” bacon is really cured - it’s not bacon if it’s not cured, it’s just pork belly.
Now, unadultured pork belly was rated as one of thetop 100 healthiest foods you can eat, and was the only mammal on the list. It was listed for its nutrients and healthy source of fat. But the second you add a bunch of salt to it - it’s off the list.