December 17, 2024
4 minimum read
Delicious bacon highlights foods that enchant our senses but put our health at risk
Some foods, no matter how simply prepared, contain many substances associated with disease.
My love for bacon is legendary in my family. When I was about five years old, I was standing by the stove while Great-Grandma Beth made breakfast. “I love bacon!” I said to her over and over again, standing on my tiptoes and peering over the edge of the pan, watching the bacon brown to perfection. Or so the story goes.
I still like bacon, but I’m not alone. Some vegetarians I know make exceptions for these things. “Bacon is a triple whammy for the senses,” says Dani Reed, chief scientific officer at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia. First, the smell tempts most people, thanks to the volatile organic compounds produced and released during frying. Then there’s the taste of salt and sugar, both of which are very appealing to humans. Finally, there’s the fat, which creates “a great texture throughout the mouth,” Reid says. Taken together, these three characteristics make bacon “difficult to resist, even for those with strong pork prohibitions.” It’s a tsunami of deliciousness,” she says.
But that powerful wave of deliciousness is made up of decidedly unhealthy elements. The World Health Organization declared bacon a carcinogen in 2015. Bacon is about 40% saturated fat, which is one of the consistently prohibited nutrients. The nitrates and nitrites added to cure bacon have been linked to high blood pressure and cancer. When bacon cooks, it releases molecules called heterocyclic amines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which have also been linked to cancer. Also, the salt in bacon can cause metabolic problems.
About supporting science journalism
If you enjoyed this article, please consider supporting our award-winning journalism. Currently subscribing. By subscribing, you help ensure future generations of influential stories about the discoveries and ideas that shape the world today.
But in recent years, nutrition research has focused on the nutritional profiles of different foods, from studies that show that whole grains are good for you and the saturated fat in bacon is bad, to how industrially processed our foods are. We are now moving on to the issue of. , especially a class of foods called “ultra-processed.”
According to the most common classification system (called NOVA), ultra-processed foods and beverages contain substances of industrial origin, such as oils, fats, coloring agents, flavoring agents, non-sugar sweeteners, and bulking and hardening agents. Contains numerous additives. Soda, potato chips, and candy are usually ultra-processed, but so are flavored yogurt and much of the bread you buy at the supermarket. The next class, processed foods, has fewer additives added to preserve or enhance flavor. As you can imagine, unprocessed foods are the edible parts of plants and animals. You can freeze or dry it for preservation, but nothing else.
Bacon is generally considered a processed product because it has added salt and sometimes sugar and nitrates. It is only called ultra-processed if it contains extra fragrances and other chemicals. This has raised concerns among some nutrition researchers. They worry that the public will hear the message that it’s okay to eat more bacon and other unhealthy foods as long as they’re not ultra-processed. These scientists want consumers to remember that substances in simply processed bacon have also been linked to illness.
There aren’t many studies comparing the disease risks of ultra-processed and processed foods. A 2024 meta-analysis found that increased intake of ultra-processed foods increases the risk of cardiometabolic disorders, mental health problems, and mortality. However, much remains unknown. One major problem is that the definition of “ultra-processing” is not yet widely agreed upon. (The NOVA classification system is just a rough guide.) As a result, scientists working on the U.S. federal government project Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2025-2030 announced that in October 2024, ultra-processed It was announced that food would not be considered. Instead, they plan to closely follow current guideline recommendations that emphasize eating foods that are high in nutrients and low in sugar, sodium, and saturated fat.
Julie Hess, a nutrition scientist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, demonstrated how complex the ultra-processed question is. She and her colleagues created a seven-day diet of about 2,000 calories per day, consisting mostly of ultra-processed foods, while meeting U.S. healthy eating guidelines. An example of a breakfast is a breakfast burrito with liquid egg whites, shredded cheese, and canned beans. Scientists have also devised a diet that is almost completely devoid of processed foods, yet less nutritious overall. That version of breakfast is high-fat, high-sugar pancakes and bacon.
It’s probably best to consider both nutrient quality and the degree of food processing, says Ming-Yan Song, a nutritionist and epidemiologist at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. In a 2024 study, he and colleagues divided foods into subgroups based on processing and looked at mortality risk and intake. Sugar-sweetened beverages such as soda and processed meat were both associated with increased mortality in people who consumed seven more drinks per day than three. However, no such increased risk was found for some types of ultra-processed foods, such as breakfast cereals and commercial breads. Overall, Song says, “If people can maintain a fairly healthy diet, consuming some ultra-processed foods doesn’t have a huge impact.”
Kathryn Bradbury, a nutritional epidemiologist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, also warns against losing sight of what we know is unhealthy. “You don’t have to worry too much about whether a food is technically ultra-processed or not,” she says. As has long been said, we should eat more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. And avoid foods high in calories, saturated fat, salt and sugar, Bradbury says. In other words, instead of going back to bacon, which should only be consumed as an occasional snack, go back to basics. Oh, oh.
This is an opinion and analysis article and the views expressed by the author are not necessarily those of the author. scientific american.
