Bacon and Sodium Nitrite (Nitrates)

Bacon and Sodium Nitrite (Nitrates) 2

Sodium nitrite (AKA nitrates) is a preservative used to slow the spoilage of pork products and cured meats such as lunch meats, hot dogs, bacon, and sausages. It is on our Scary Seven list of ingredients to avoid, and for good reason! Nitrites combine with amines to form carcinogenic nitrosamines.

Bacon almost always contains nitrosamines is bacon due to the very high cooking temperature used to fry it. I recommend avoiding it whenever possible.

Instead, choose cured and lunch meats that do not contain added nitrates, or nitrites. My go-to meat of choice when traveling is Applegate Farms. They have a whole line of natural and organic meats that do not contain added nitrites. You can check out their standards here.

Below is my recent segment on Great Day Houston. I talked about healthy summer entertaining, and healthier hot dogs were on the menu!

Image: Didriks

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Andrea Donsky, RHN
Andrea Donsky, B. COMM is an international TV Health Expert, Best Selling Author, Nutritionist Podcast Host, and Founder of NaturallySavvy.com—a recipient of Healthline’s Best Healthy Living Blogs for 2019. As a pioneer and visionary in the health food industry, Andrea’s passion is to inspire people to make healthier choices. Andrea has combined her background and expertise as both a Registered Holistic Nutritionist and an entrepreneur ("She Boss!") to educate the public on living a healthy lifestyle through the creation of her businesses, books, articles, podcasts, videos, talks, and TV and radio media appearances. Andrea founded Naturally Savvy Media Inc. in 2007 in order to share her passion for healthy living, and love for natural products and companies. Among her numerous publications, Andrea co-authored Unjunk your Junk Food published by Simon and Schuster, a book that journalist, author and mother Maria Shriver endorsed: “Unjunk Your Junk Food has certainly made me more aware about the food that my children eat and the effects it has on our body and mind."</P. Andrea also co-authored two e-books entitled Label Lessons: Your Guide To A Healthy Shopping Cart, and Label Lessons: Unjunk Your Kid’s Lunch Box.