December 17, 2024
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Delicious bacon highlights food that delights our senses but puts our health at risk
Some foods, even when simply prepared, contain many substances linked to disease
My love of bacon is legendary in my family. When I was about five years old, I stood by the kitchen while my grandmother Bess made breakfast. “I like bacon!” I said over and over as I stood on tiptoe, peering over the edge of the pan and watching the strip riders in perfect brown. Or so the story goes.
I still like bacon, and I’m not alone. Some vegetarians I know make an exception. “Bacon is a triple sensory punch,” says Dani Reed, director of science at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia. First of all, the smell attracts most people, thanks to the volatile organic compounds that are created and released during frying. Then there is the taste of salt and sugar, both of which are very attractive to humans. Finally, there’s the fat, which creates a “beautiful texture all over the mouth,” says Reed. Combined, these three characteristics make bacon “difficult for people to deal with, even for those who have strong prohibitions against pork. It’s a delicious tsunami,” he says.
However, this powerful wave of deliciousness is made up of clearly unhealthy elements. The World Health Organization classified bacon as carcinogenic in 2015. Bacon is 40 percent saturated fat, one of the consistent negatives of nutrition. Nitrates and nitrites added to cure bacon are linked to high blood pressure and cancer. As it cooks, bacon releases molecules called heterocyclic amines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are also linked to cancer. And the salt in the ham can help with metabolic problems.
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In recent years, however, the focus of nutrition research has shifted from the nutritional profiles of various foods, the work that says whole grains are good for us and saturated fat for bacon is not, to the issue of how much food is subjected to industrial processing. , especially the class of foods described as “ultra-processed”.
According to the most common classification system (called NOVA), Ultra-processed foods and beverages contain many industrially derived additives, which may include oils, fats, color enhancers, flavor enhancers, sugar-free sweeteners, and bulking and strengthening agents. Soda, chips and candy are usually ultra-processed, but so are flavored yogurts and a lot of bread you buy at the supermarket. Processed foods, in the next class, have fewer added ingredients to preserve or enhance flavor. Unprocessed foods are, as you might expect, the edible parts of plants and animals; they can be frozen or dried for storage, but nothing else.
In general, bacon is considered processed, salt, sometimes sugar, nitrates, etc. It is called ultra-processed only when it contains added flavors and other chemical agents. This has raised concerns among some nutrition researchers. They fear the message the public might hear is that it’s okay to eat bacon and other healthy foods, as long as they’re not ultra-processed. These scientists want consumers to remember that substances in processed bacon are also linked to disease.
Not much research has been done comparing the disease risks of ultra-processed and processed foods. A 2024 meta-analysis found that higher consumption of ultra-processed foods increased the risks of cardiometabolic disorders, mental health problems, and mortality. But much remains unknown. A major problem is that there is still no widely agreed upon definition of “ultra-processed”. (The NOVA classification system is only an approximate guide.) As a result, scientists The 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, a project of the US federal government, announced in October 2024 that they were not weighing in ultra-processed foods. Instead, they will stick to the recommendations in the current guidelines, which emphasize eating foods that are high in nutrients and low in sugar, sodium, and saturated fat.
Nutrition scientist Julie Hess of the US Department of Agriculture has shown how complicated the ultra-processed question can be. He and his colleagues created a seven-day diet of about 2,000 calories per day that meets the US Healthy Diet Guidelines, but consists of ultra-processed foods. A breakfast sampler is a breakfast burrito topped with runny egg whites, shredded cheese and canned beans. Scientists also created a diet consisting almost entirely of processed foods, but it is generally low in nutrient quality. That version of breakfast is high-fat, high-sugar pancakes and bacon.
It’s probably better to consider nutrient quality and the level of food processing, says nutritionist and epidemiologist Mingyang Song of the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. In a 2024 study, he and his colleagues divided foods into subgroups based on processing, then analyzed mortality risk and amount consumed. Sugar-sweetened beverages, such as soda and processed meat, were associated with higher mortality for people who consumed more servings per day, about seven compared to three. But there was no such increased risk for some ultra-processed foods, such as breakfast cereals and commercial breads. In general, Song says, “if people maintain a relatively healthy diet, consuming any amount of ultra-processed food won’t have (much of an effect).”
Kathryn Bradbury, a nutrition epidemiologist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, also warns against losing sight of what we know is unhealthy. “We shouldn’t get too caught up in whether a food product is technically ultra-processed or not,” he says. We have been told for a long time that we should eat more fruits, vegetables and whole grains. And we should avoid foods that are high in calories, saturated fat, salt and added sugar, says Bradbury. In other words, go back to basics, and not bacon, which should only be consumed once in a while. Oh!
This is an opinion and analysis article, and the views expressed by the author(s) are not necessarily their own. American scientific
