Not only is meat cured with celery extract still cured, but it probably has more nitrates than "artificially" cured meat, since if you're using powdered nitrate salt, you can add precisely the amount you need.

Generally: if it tastes like what you expect ham or bacon to taste like, or it looks like what you expect it to look like, it's cured with nitrates. Nitrates have a powerful effect on flavor and color.

> Generally: if it tastes like what you expect ham or bacon to taste like, or it looks like what you expect it to look like, it's cured with nitrates.

So you are saying that even if I got my own raw pork belly from the butcher and learned how to cure it properly with salt, its look and taste would still be inferior to the delicious blocks of bacon I get at any chain grocery store?

It won't taste "hammy" without nitrates. It won't be bad. Everything tastes better cured.

That's not entirely true. It must be cured, but it doesn't necessarily need nitrites to cure it.

You can buy salt cured bacon here: https://shop.bentonscountryham.com/ProductDetails.asp?Produc...

Benton's is great bacon, but:

(1) You can look at that price tag and see why it's unlikely to be your go-to bacon,

(2) Last I checked, Benton's used a nitrate cure, and

(3) Seriously, intensely smoked food (Benton's bacon qualifies) is probably going to be more carcinogenic from the smoking compounds than from the cure. Unlike nitrate->N-nitrosamine, we're pretty clear on how smoked food causes gastric cancer.

If you live near a large enough community of former Yugoslavians, you can find nitrate-free Suho Meso, which (when it's good) is like a cross between bacon and prosciutto. However, it contains all the carcinogens of smoked meat. That said the largest brand in the US (US-produced, actually) is not nitrate-free.