A good friend of mine recently pointed-out the risk from eating nitrites (preservatives) in cooked bacon. It seems that this is because the high temperatures of cooking lead to the formation of nasty nitrosamines, as excerpt from this article below…
The use of nitrates in food preservation is controversial. This is due to the potential for the formation of nitrosamines when the preserved food is cooked at high temperature.[8]
So my next question is “how do you cook bacon without producing these nasties?” This study tested this for one type of nitrosamine (NNA), that found that…
The total NNAs (NDMA and NPYR) in the skillet-fried bacon was c. 11 ng/g for both the 171 and 206 degrees C fried samples. No NNAs were detected in the bacon or fried-out fat after cooking in a microwave oven for 45 sec/slice. However, excessive cooking of the bacon in a microwave oven (75 sec/slice) does produce levels of NPYR up to 5 ng/g.
I’d like to look into smoked, or brine cured bacon next. In the meantime we’ll either microwave it, or not eat it at all.
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