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Most Uncured Bacon Is a Lie
- mc32 7y agoIsn’t pork belly essentially uncured bacon (albeit not sliced)?
- jmpman 7y agoThe 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.