Is this bacon ok?

(chad) #1

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So I see sugar in the ingredients but not on the breakdown? ??? Is this ok to eat??

#2

Great question! I would have thought the same. Wonder if it’s like making kefir where some bacteria use up all the sugar? Love it - replying mostly so I can easily follow the replies and learn.

(Jane- Old Inky Crone) #3

Who eats only 2 slices? The reason the portion size is so small is so that they can claim 0 grams sugars/carbs. Maybe scan the barcode with cronometer and enter 16 oz for the serving and see what comes up for carbs. I eat at least a half a package at a sitting!

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #4

The numbers game. If something is present but is less than .5 grams it can be rounded to 0. They have calculated that whatever amount of sugar is in the curing solution, .5 grams or less has been absorbed into the equivalent of 17 grams of fried bacon. As @JaneyMae points out, that’s not very much bacon! They chose that odd serving size only because they want to claim 0 carbs and my bet is a bigger serving size’, like 20 grams, would result in something larger than .5 grams of sugar and thus require them to list it as 1 gram.

If you’re concerned about sugar in your bacon, just find a brand that does not use sugar in the curing solution. Generally, look for ‘naturally smoked’ and/or ‘no added sugar’. Fortunately, it has got to the point that NOT adding sugar is now a selling point and processors who don’t advertise the fact that they don’t.

Good label reading, by the way! :wink:

(Jeb Bower) #5

Key words to look at is “CURED WITH:” All that means is that a big slab of pork was soaked in a brine that had all that stuff in it, which includes sugar. It gets rinsed off and then sliced. The reason it shows 0g sugar is probably because the amount of sugar left on that bacon really is less than 1g.

While it sounds easy enough, good luck finding any cured bacon that doesn’t have sugar listed on the label. Even if it isn’t labeled as “Sugar Cured”, chances are pretty good that the brine still had sugar in it.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #6

There appear to be numerous options. :slightly_smiling_face:

Sugar Free Pork Bacon Slices

There is no sweetener in US Wellness Meats’ Sugar Free Pork Bacon Slices. There is also no white sugar, brown sugar, honey powder, agave, turbinado sugar, MSG, nitrates, or nitrites.
Ingredients: pork, sea salt, natural flavor (from hickory smoking)

Pederson’s Sugar Free Bacon

Pederson Sugar Free Bacon is smoked uncured Bacon made from pork that is humanely raised. Minimally processed, no preservatives, no artificial ingredients, no added nitrates or nitrites (except those naturally occurring in celery powder), no gluten, no lactose, no MSG, no added sweeteners. Paleo and Whole 30 approved!
Ingredients: Pork, water, salt, vinegar, celery powder.

Incredible hickory smoked bacon, now with no added sugar

Ingredients:Pork, Water, Vinegar & Lemon Juice Concentrate, Salt, Cultured Celery Juice.

Applegate Naturals No Sugar Bacon

Ingredients: Pork, Water, Sea Salt. Contains Less Than 2% Of The Following: Celery Powder.

Naked Bacon No Sugar Added

Love bacon, but want to pass on the sugar? We have you covered with our No Sugar Added flavor. After all, you don’t have to have sugar to have a treat.

Wegman’s

Ingredients: Pork, Water, Contains 2% or less of each: Salt, Vinegar, Citrus Extracts, Rosemary Extract, Pomegranate Extract.

Of course, you can always make your own bacon!

Curing bacon - its generally cured with sugar, salt, - how does the sugar not translate to a lot of carbs?
(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #7

The USDA food composition database shows no sugar content in that particular product (I used the UPC to be sure), even per kilogram, much less for a serving size of two slices. In fact, it shows no carbohydrate at all. I think it’s safe to eat.

Normally, however, I assume that if sugar is listed as an ingredient but shows 0 g/serving, the actual content is 0.4999999999999 g/serving. In this case, it appears I would have been wrong to do so.

(Scott) #8

I only have one for breakfast…with my two eggs, HWC, cheese, butter and sausage.

(chad) #9

Great. I’m going to look for bacon with out sugar in the ingredients next time but I have a few packs I’d like to finish off so they don’t go to waste. Glad there safe to eat tho

(Full Metal KETO AF) #10

In the US it’s <0.9g. can be rounded down.
The FDA considers less than one gram “insignificant nutritionally “.

Chad I highly recommend downloading or using an online tracker. Cronometer is what I use and it’s pretty popular with people who track here. The beauty of tracking is making yourself aware of just how many carbs are really in your daily food. As an example your bacon says zero carb but lists sugar in the ingredients. Quite a bit of that sugar caramelizes in your pan as bacon residue after cooking. But with the tracking this is what you get;

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Sometimes you can run a brand specific choice but I found the Kroger claim unbelievable as it came out zero carb for 1 pound. The generic listing seems more honest to me in this case. So there are carbs in bacon, eggs and most processed meats like salami and pepperoni but they are mostly pretty low. A tracking app will let you know how many carbs there are in a serving size of your choice. They are free to download and use in basic versions which is all you need. Good luck Chad.

:cowboy_hat_face:

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #11

@David_Stilley I can’t agree more strongly! Carbs are ubiquitous even in stuff you least expect it to be. I can’t imagine how the people who advocate not weighing food portions possibly know how many carbs they’re eating. I bet they’d be shocked to discover how many they’re actually eating by guestimating, especially if they’re relying on ‘cups’ and ‘tablespoons’. 20 grams is a mind-numbing small amount.

(Full Metal KETO AF) #12

@amwassil Apparently I was mistaken about the FDA rounding down policy, I did read that misinformation somewhere on this forum…:scream:

(chad) #13

Is crono better or worse than myfitnesspal

(Little Miss Scare-All) #14

Man, I wish I liked bacon. :confounded:

(Andi loves space, bacon and fasting. ) #15

Thank you for these links. I live in an affluent health-conscious part of California and I haven’t yet found bacon in the markets here that don’t have added sugar. I can even taste the sugar when I cook with the bacon fat. I will be placing an order from one of these companies soon. Thanks again!!

(Full Metal KETO AF) #16

I have never used My Fitness Pal, Cronometer was recommended by some here and I like using it. It’s a free download or you can look at the online version at Cronometer.com
They have a pretty extensive data base and a lot of programmability for your personal needs. I imagine Fitness Pal is similar . Are you using that? :cowboy_hat_face:

(Full Metal KETO AF) #17

Even @Sharon_E and @Acnickel are eating bacon now, What’s the problem? I’ve seen you eating the potato chip like bacon at McD’s! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: :cowboy_hat_face:

(Little Miss Scare-All) #18

Lmao! I think I get in the mood for it, I eat it and then remember I don’t enjoy it that much. 1 slice and I’m good.

This made me laugh :rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

(Shane) #19

I don’t weigh anything I eat, though I don’t actually advocate that.

I’m mainly carnivore, so 20g of carbs is a fair bit. I do watch out for things like bacon and dairy which can add up, but I don’t actually count them. What I do is test my BG after eating new/different foods and see how I react and make changes if necessary.
Here’s what happened about 6-7 weeks ago when I ate 3 sausages that claimed to be 0.7% carbs, the first spike that put me above the (alleged) healthy range followed 4 hours later by a large meal with veggies that hardly moved it. The sausages should have had no more than 2g of carbs total.

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I can (and do) regularly eat 1 to 1 1/2 frying pans of bacon at a time and get a response like the 2nd/3rd spikes. What I’ve found here is the cheaper the bacon, the more sugar used, but I’d have to eat an awful lot of it to raise my BG, which to me is more important than claimed carb content…maybe I’l do a bacon chart this arvo, it’s close enough to brecky time.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #20

@kingfisher Thanks. I’m glad you’re the one donating blood to this data gathering. I’m betting it doesn’t take many carbs to move that needle (pun intended :slightly_smiling_face:). I have wondered, however, if we really need to be much concerned about staying sub-20 grams per day. The spikes caused by the sausage in your graph petered out after a few hours. So I wonder if staying sub-20 per meal is sufficient. In a few months time I am getting one of these which promises to measure the ratio of fat/carb burn in real time. Then I can test this myself. In the meantime, if you feel like donating the blood…