Preservatives in Meats Like Bacon Lead to Heart Disease, Study Suggests

While bacon is not for everyone, let’s face it, it’s a pretty popular food item that we as Americans have a slight obsession with!  Now, a new study is linking not only bacon, but sausage, hot dogs, and deli meats with an increase in heart disease.  More importantly, it may not even be for the reason that you think.

A Harvard research team analyzed data from approximately 1,600 studies that were conducted to determine whether a link existed between meat consumption and heart disease and diabetes.  They defined meat as beef, pork, and lamb, but not poultry.  Additionally, the study recognized processed meats preserved by salting, curing, smoking, or using preservatives, bacon being one such processed meat.  According to Food Consumer, the research team found that consuming approximately two ounces or fifty grams of processed meat per day was associated with a forty-two percent increased risk of heart disease.  They could not, however, find any association between consuming regular, unprocessed meat with an increased risk of the harmful condition.

The researchers believe that it must be the preservatives, such as salt, sodium nitrate, and nitrate salt that are responsible for the increase.  This stands to reason due to the fact that the wholly unprocessed meats did not return the same results.  Even doctors and other professionals that encourage low carbohydrate dieting, in which many people consume meat, including bacon, recommend eating nitrate free products for this very reason.   Despite the conclusions of the study, the results are not meant to show a direct cause between the consumption of these products and heart disease.  It was merely a finding of connection between the two.

If you are concerned about the impact of preservatives in your meat products, you are in luck.  Many retailers now carry these items with no preservatives and you can always seek out local farmers who sell them in their whole state.  As with any food, the closer it is to nature the better it is going to be for your body and as a protection against diseases, such as heart disease.