by Whole9
Extract:
The Bummer Part
You see, bacon, however delicious it might be, has some downsides.
First, factory-farmed bacon (approximately 95% of the bacon purchased in the US, according to 2007 data) is, nutritionally speaking, garbage. It’s the fattiest cut of an inhumanely treated, poorly fed, often sickly animal, and it’s loaded with unhealthy (i.e. contaminated) fats, preservatives and additives. We’d venture to call it toxic meat, but then again, we love hyperbole. Nonetheless, we think nobody should eat factory-farmed bacon – ever.
Even in family farms where the animals are treated well, their diets are not always conducive to our optimal health. Even “pastured” pigs’ diets are often supplemented with corn, grains and soybeans. This makes this kind of pastured pork the equivalent of grain-fed cattle that get to eat a little bit of grass – and we would not designate that meat as optimally healthy for you. Because we believe high-quality, grass-finished, organic meat from ruminants (like beef, lamb and elk) is the most healthy protein source available, promoting lots of lesser quality meats like bacon – even from mostly pastured pork – doesn’t make much sense. (Nonetheless, this is not a case against pork. In a rotation of high-quality meats, 100% pastured, organic pork may have its place.)
So why aren’t we promoting 100% pastured, organic, family-farmed bacon?
Here’s where our experience comes in. Historically, when we give people a nutritional inch, they take a nutritional mile. And like a Paleo version of “telephone”, our message tends to degrade the further it spreads. When we mention that we use 100% egg white powder when we travel, people take that to mean, “It’s okay to drink protein shakes!” We say pastured, organic, clarified butter is a good food choice, they pass along, “Whole9 says eat more butter!” Which is exactly why you’ll never hear us mention bacon.
So if we mentioned 100% pastured, organic, nitrate/nitrite-free , family-farmed bacon in every web article, Facebook post and Twitter tweet, well… readers, followers, and workshop attendees would hear (and tell others), “Whole9 say eat bacon!” And then they’d tell their friends, family members and blog readers to eat more bacon, and then you’ve got a whole group of Paleo newbies buying pounds of Oscar Mayer – and consuming what could, in fact, be the unhealthiest meat product out there (besides Spam) in copious amounts. Oops. So that’s one reason we don’t pimp bacon.
6:3 (You Knew We’d Go There)
Some authors, including the highly-respected Dr. Michael Eades, compare the fatty acid profile of bacon to olive oil and conclude that they are very similar. A few percentage points of monounsaturated fat (MUFA) or saturated fat (SFA) aside, we’ll agree. Furthermore, the total polyunsaturated fat (PUFA) content of bacon fat and olive oil are almost identical. (Weird, right?) So here’s where we come back to having a consistent thought process for our recommendations.
We generally recommend against cooking with olive oil… so why would we champion cooking with bacon?
Here’s the back-story. We (and lots of Smart People like Chris Kresser and Chris Masterjohn ) recommend aggressively limiting your polyunsaturated fat intake because those fragile fats undergo peroxidation most easily (compared to MUFA and SFA). The oxidation process forms damaging free radicals that promote inflammation, contribute to aging, and increase the risk of cancer. Heating these fats and exposing them to air (oxygen) dramatically increases the rate that these fats oxidize. So, logically, we recommend that you avoid heating or cooking with fats (like olive oil) that contain these fragile, prone-to-oxidation PUFAs.
So if we believe olive oil should not be heated, and bacon and olive oil have almost the same PUFA content, why would we portray bacon as a healthy choice, given that no one eats their bacon carpaccio-style? Bacon is generally cooked in the open air at fairly high temperatures until “well done”, which smells like oxidized PUFA to us. (And given that their PUFA profile is practically identical, it also doesn’t make sense for us to recommend against cooking with olive oil, but then to give cooking with bacon fat the green light.)
The kicker is that the amount of total fat (and thus PUFA, as a percentage of the total) in a manly-sized serving of bacon is much greater than you’d get from a tablespoon-sized serving of olive oil. (Remember, it’s not just about the ratio of 6:3 in any given food or meal – it’s more about the total dose.) So dissing EVOO for cooking but crispifying a pound of bacon every morning – or frying all your food in bacon fat – just doesn’t add up to us.
Delicous Isn’t Good Enough.
Our concern is not just with the amount of – or 6:3 ratio of – pastured vs. conventional bacon – it’s not just about the fat. (And we don’t really want to debate the potential harm of nitrates/nitrites that are commonly used to preserve bacon. That smacks of justification.) The final reason we don’t promote bacon is because even if you buy the uncured, organic, 100% pastured, nitrate-free stuff, it’s still not your best protein choice. (It doesn’t even make our Top Ten, in fact.) Amy Kubal, RD, says “Many consider bacon a quality source of protein, but this is not necessarily the case compared to beef or chicken. In fact, bacon is often just as much fat as protein.
Bacon is delicious – don’t get me wrong. It’s my favorite ‘condiment’ and should be treated as just that – a condiment. A slice or two every now and then is great, but as an everyday protein option, you can do better.”
Jake 23 May, 2011 at 10:50 am #
Cook bacon in the microwave between 4 sheets of paper towels. PUFAs have a very low melting point and they flow out to be absorbed by the paper towels. The saturated fat stays in the bacon.
