Uncured bacon isn't any healthier in terms of nitrites and nitrates

1. Cured (traditional) - Cured meat in the traditional sense basically means covering it in salt and letting it age. You can either brine it or dry-salt it. No nitrates/nitrites. Cured bacon in this sense would mean taking the whole slab of bacon, covering it in salt, and hanging it to dry - "dry-cured". This yields unique flavor and, more importantly, greatly extends shelf-life. Prosciutto and jamon are made this way and can be kept for years with this method.

2. Cured (USDA definition) - Cured per USDA means injected with a salt and nitrate/nitrite solution. Sometimes spices are added. Products like bacon are typically kept wet and sealed in plastic, though some things are dry-aged, as above. This yields mild visual, flavor, and moderate shelf-life improvements to the product. What most Americans know as ham ("city-ham") is processed in this way, as opposed to country ham, which is traditionally-cured, like prosciutto.

3. Uncured (USDA definition) - Uncured per USDA differs from USDA-cured only in the source of the nitrates/nitrites. In this method, they typically come from celery salt. As with USDA-cured, this gives mild visual, flavor, and only moderate shelf-life improvements to the meat.

Most Americans have never had traditionally-cured meat. Traditionally-cured meat doesn't have anything like the harmful effects of USDA-cured/uncured meat does, due to the absence of nitrates/nitrites. I would also wager that a wet, fatty, acidic thing marinating inside plastic packaging also has something to do with being cancer-causing, as it likely leeches chemicals from the plastic.

So traditionally-cured meat is what you want. Salt-only. Unfortunately, it's harder to find in America. And if you do, it's priced like some kind of gourmet luxury good - unacceptable. Cured meat is how my peasant family got through winters in days past - it's for everyone, not just kings!

We use a traditional cure that's basically just salt, letting it brine for a week in the fridge. Then we smoke the cured slabs and slice it into vacuum-sealed packs for the freezer.

The result is some of the best bacon on the planet, and I wouldn't sell it for any price. By contrast, we previously had our butchers cure the bacon, and it has never been as good. Even their nitrate free recipe does not compare to homemade.

Still, I think the biggest difference has been feeding them milk; the flavor difference has been nearly incomparable to past pork, which was already infinitely better than what you can buy in the stores.

'Cured' and 'uncured' are weird artifacts of the US Agriculture Department's labeling requirements and refer to the source of the nitrates/nitrites used to cure the product, not their amount or type. Cured and uncured bacon are the same thing.

Best invention today: shelf-stable boxes of bacon