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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nMost big stores do now offer an own-brand nitrate-free bacon. Photograph: sergeyryzhov\/Getty Images\/iStockphoto<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The WHO lists processed meat as a \u201cknown human carcinogen\u201d along with smoking, alcohol and asbestos, but clearly these substances don\u2019t all carry the same risk. Smoking is the biggest cause of lung cancer, which leads to 35,000 UK deaths per year. Alcohol is linked to seven kinds of cancer, and comes with other health risks such as heart and liver disease, along with serious accidents. Nevertheless, Denis Corpet, professor of food safety and human nutrition in Toulouse, says he never buys so-called nitro-meats. He used to pack charcuterie when he hiked up mountains, but now, he says, \u201cI don\u2019t buy it because we\u2019ve learned so much.\u201d Not that an occasional slice of ham as part of a healthy varied diet is that<\/em> risky, he says, if it\u2019s anything like the traditional plant-heavy diet of Mediterranean peasants who \u201ccouldn\u2019t afford meat very often\u201d. His own research has found that consuming calcium alongside your processed meat can block the carcinogenicity \u2013 although this hasn\u2019t been demonstrated in large cohorts yet, so mandatory cheese and ham combinations is nowhere near the official-medical-advice stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the meantime, British supermarket offerings remain disappointingly nitrate-heavy. Most big stores do now offer an own-brand nitrate-free bacon. In my local I can also find one ring of nitrite-free chorizo, Unearthed\u2019s prosciutto and serrano hams, and Finnebrogue Naked\u2019s nitrate-free bacon and ham. Finnebrogue Naked\u2019s bacon is among the most expensive per kilo. And that\u2019s largely it, among shelves upon shelves of nitrates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n France is a little further ahead, says Corpet: \u201cI would say a quarter are nitrate-free now,\u201d and they are only \u201ca little more expensive\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was Finnebrogue Naked that first demonstrated in the UK in 2018 that nitrate-free bacon butties were possible. Based in Northern Ireland, the company started out making sausages for M&S, but the WHO\u2019s 2015 report on processed meat gave them an idea. \u201cWe thought: we\u2019ve got all this volume of pork; why don\u2019t we step in and try and do this the \u2018proper\u2019 way?\u201d says Jago Pearson, chief strategy officer at Finnebrogue. In 2018, the company launched its Naked Bacon (now renamed Better Naked) brand and began producing M&S\u2019s own label nitrate-free bacon. Now it\u2019s supplying Sainsbury\u2019s, Tesco, Waitrose, Asda and Morrisons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The secret ingredient Finnebrogue adds instead of nitrates is simply \u201cfruit and spice extracts\u201d according to Declan Ferguson, the firm\u2019s research, development and technical director. It was developed by the Spanish food technology company, Prosur and it is also used in Waitrose Made without Nitrite bacon, made by Pilgrim\u2019s UK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Ferguson, the only reason there has to be any additive at all is to keep the meat pink. A protein in meat called myoglobin naturally turns red and then brown as it oxidises, and the nitrates stop this happening. If the bacon went grey-brown, he says, you couldn\u2019t legally sell it as bacon. The Prosur additive is high in antioxidants, which, says Ferguson, also \u201cstops that myoglobin going brown\u201d. It doesn\u2019t slow the curing process or affect shelf life. \u201cTo the naked eye it looks like normal bacon,\u201d he says, \u201cbut it actually isn\u2019t the same pink as nitrate bacon and ham \u2013 it\u2019s more red.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before bacon was made industrially, he says, \u201cit would have been done either through salting or salt plus drying\u201d. Parma and Serrano ham are made similarly: \u201cThe more traditional producers only use salt and drying.\u201d Fermented products like salami, for which microbes are essential, can easily be made without nitrates, too, he says. \u201cNitrates have been introduced over time to help speed up that process and to create something that looks pink and fresh,\u201d says Ferguson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the carcinogen story broke in 2015, many in the meat industry claimed that nitrates protected charcuterie-lovers from contracting botulism, a rare but serious disease caused by toxins produced by Clostridium botulinum bacteria. When Finnebrogue started making nitrate-free bacon and ham, it had to spend a lot of time and money debunking this. \u201cWe\u2019ve done \u2018challenge-testing\u2019, where we put the clostridium botulinum bugs in the bacon,\u201d Ferguson says. \u201cWe tested whether it grew and we were able to prove that it didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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