Visual and sensory characteristics can indicate important details of the bacon production process, as well as influence the quality of the product.
Paladar tested 15 of the supermarket’s leading bacon brands, with expert judges looking for the products that came closest to the characteristics of what would be considered perfect bacon. But do you know what they are?
Find out what deli experts have to say about what to look for and how to identify good bacon options at the grocery store below.
Balance: The Secret of Everything
Above all, bacon must be a balanced product. A common theme among the experts interviewed, the presence of seasonings and spices, balanced with a good amount of salt and a protein with adequate characteristics, ensures that bacon has a pleasant final result and is excellent for use in recipes.
For Hugo Sobrinho, artisanal cured meats by …in CanevaOne of the most common defects of industrial bacon is excess salt, an indication of defective and inadequate curing.
“Salt is an important factor to watch out for in these products. There are few supermarket products that find this balance, many have salt on the palate,” the expert emphasizes.
According to Paula Labaki, a pastrami roaster who runs Labaki Deli Shop, it’s also important to observe how the bacon behaves after reheating.
He states that if the bacon does not have a good balance in the ratio of meat to fat (generally with a significantly higher fat layer), the product tends to shrink or dry out too much in the pan or in the oven, losing shape, becoming dry and with an inadequate final flavour.
Experts also stressed the importance of bacon having a distinctive smoky flavour, a factor they said was rare among supermarket products.
It is also worth remembering that tasty bacon with safe production processes could be eaten raw, sliced thinly as if they were ham.
Dark and/or reddish spots: what do they mean?
They usually go unnoticed, but it is common to find pieces of bacon and other types of pork with small reddish or darkened spots between the fibers and fat of the meat, and this can be an indication of poor quality in the production process.
Labaki says it is best to stay away from pork products with this characteristic. According to the expert, these dark spots, noticed when slicing a piece of bacon, for example, could indicate that the pig from which the piece was obtained was stressed in its development.
“The presence of these dark purple spots, which correspond to the veins and blood vessels of the pig, indicates that the pH [do sangue do animal] remained at high levels during its development, which is indicative of stress,” Labaki says. The presence of these factors is another indication that the meat used in bacon may be of lower quality.
“For cured meats, it is very important that the proteins used in the products are of quality, coming from places where the creation can be traced and certified, even more so for those who are thinking of entering this world.”
According to a publication by Embrapa (Angela Maria Xavier Eloy, 2007), the precarious conditions of the captive environment, confinement with a high degree of isolation, abusive treatments and inadequate slaughter techniques are some of the main causes of stress in animal production.
Discover other Paladar tests
Here at Paladar we also test other cured meat products, always with a team of experts at our side to evaluate the products using technical criteria and blind tastings.
By clicking on the link below you can consult the test we carried out with the brands of Calabrian cured meats available in supermarkets, or Click here to verify the results of the test carried out with Tuscan cured meats.
Source: Terra
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