Shopping for bacon should be a joyous experience. But all too often these days, it’s just confusing.
Some supermarkets sell dozens of varieties. As bacon has gained in popularity, labels such as “applewood-smoked” and “dry rubbed” have proliferated to the point where the bacon section can be completely bewildering — even to a professional food writer like me. And with bacon prices hovering near all-time highs, it would be irresponsible to make a choice without full knowledge.
To help make sense bacon labels, I enlisted Joseph Sebranek, distinguished professor of animal sciences at Iowa State University, one of the country’s foremost experts on cured meat. It turns out some labels are actually pretty significant, but others can be safely ignored. Here’s what Sebranek had to say about labels you’re likely to encounter.
“Curing refers to the interaction of the nitrates with the meat to develop the color, some of its antimicrobial properties and also a bit of taste,” Sebranek said. It’s basically what sets bacon apart from raw pork belly. The conventional bacon-curing method is to inject the belly with a solution of salt, sugar, phosphates and nitrates. If you don’t see any curing-related label, you can probably assume the producer used this default method. But not all of them do.
Sugar cured and maple bacon: These two terms usually refer to the ingredients used in the curing solution. Since the default solution includes sugar, “sugar cured” isn’t very significant. Maple bacon, though, is usually cured with a solution that includes some maple syrup, which could affect the flavor. Sebranek said you can always confirm the makeup of the curing solution by looking at the ingredients listed on the package. If there’s really maple in there, it should say so.
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With more and more Americans shunning gluten, food producers often tout gluten-free credentials. Some bacon producers have started to label their products “gluten-free” as well. On the face of it, that sounds, at best, absurd, and at worst, like a craven marketing tactic. Shouldn’t it be obvious that bacon is gluten-free? But Sebranek said it’s a little more complicated than that.
“Bacon does not normally include gluten, but in some processing plants there are other products being made that include grain ingredients that would include gluten,” he said.
“Those that claim ‘gluten-free’ are typically processing the bacon in a plant or a separate area where there are no gluten ingredients of any kind used, even for other types of processed meats,” Sebranek continued. “Thus, they can safely guarantee ‘gluten-free.'”
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