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Every bacon package I have inspected has %0 sugar in the nutritional facts, however the ingredients state sugar. I am so confused. 

 please assist, this might be silly but losing my mind. el oh el. 

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They're allowed to round down on labels and there really isn't much sugar in bacon.

Sugar in bacon is generally part of the cure and is rinsed off once the meat is cured. For example, I have a 3lb belly curing in the fridge right now, and it only has 30g of sugar for the whole thing. Once cured, I'll rinse it, soak it, then smoke it.  If I was to work out how much sugar is in each serve, it would be negligible, but that doesn't change the fact that there is indeed sugar as an ingredient and that's what we have to avoid on W30.

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6 minutes ago, Ryan Oakford Posen said:

@SchrodingersCat thanks so much for a quick response! When we see that we can have bacon in the book, what bacon are they referring to? Thank you :)

Apparently there are no sugar bacons out there - I'm in Australia and haven't found any, but apparently Trader Joes, Costco and Whole Foods have some. It's just hard to find. I've been using prosciutto instead - still have to check labels but its much easier to find a no sugar prosciutto here.

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Ryan, if you've got a Sprouts near you (or are lucky enough to find it somewhere for cheaper), Garret Valley is a brand that carries both pork and turkey bacon products with no added sugar. Their pork bacon is quite good, I've used it in several recipes and eaten it alone; never tried the turkey bacon but noticed my Sprouts carries both. (I had found the no-sugar pork variety for a while at my LIDL, for about half the cost of Sprouts, but it hasn't been in stock for several weeks.)

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22 hours ago, Ryan Oakford Posen said:

@SchrodingersCat thanks so much for a quick response! When we see that we can have bacon in the book, what bacon are they referring to? Thank you :)

Sorry to tell you my fellow Vancouverite but compliant bacon is a Canadian Unicorn... I 'think' I found it once at Costco but you'd have to check... even Whole Foods has sugar in theirs... in places I've wanted to use bacon, I've subbed prosciutto which is way easier to find compliant... 

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7 minutes ago, SugarcubeOD said:

Sorry to tell you my fellow Vancouverite but compliant bacon is a Canadian Unicorn... I 'think' I found it once at Costco but you'd have to check... even Whole Foods has sugar in theirs... in places I've wanted to use bacon, I've subbed prosciutto which is way easier to find compliant... 

Very much the same thing in Australia! 

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  • 2 weeks later...

So, W30 Comrades, if my label (bacon or other) lists sugars (i.e. "3g)" or sugar (i.e. "0g") under "Nutrition Facts", but not under the "Ingredients" am I good?  I am on Day 2 (how do you do) and having trouble with this label thing.  I've checked all my reference material and searched this site but can 't seem to find a clear guide.  A diagram would be nice even.  Am I dense?  Can someone help me?  

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38 minutes ago, Michelle Joy said:

So, W30 Comrades, if my label (bacon or other) lists sugars (i.e. "3g)" or sugar (i.e. "0g") under "Nutrition Facts", but not under the "Ingredients" am I good?  I am on Day 2 (how do you do) and having trouble with this label thing.  I've checked all my reference material and searched this site but can 't seem to find a clear guide.  A diagram would be nice even.  Am I dense?  Can someone help me?  

All you're worried about is the ingredients list. As long as all the ingredients are okay, then it is okay to have.

Many foods, like any kind of fruit or vegetable, will have naturally occurring sugars, and those are fine -- but they mean ever can of tomatoes you look at will list grams of sugar in the nutrition info, even if there's no sugar in the ingredients. That's fine.

Bacon tends to go the other way, it'll show 0 grams in the nutrition info, but the ingredients list will include sugar. That is not okay to have.

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Whole30 never cares about the Nutrition Panel. We only care about the ingredient list! So, you should be good if you don't see sugar listed there. However, make sure to check the "may contain less than 2%" part of the ingredient list and to check for all the sneaky sugar names!

Best of luck! Bacon makes Whole30 so much better! LOL. 

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13 hours ago, kirbz said:

Best of luck! Bacon makes Whole30 so much better! LOL

Totally agree! I haven't found sugar free bacon here in Australia and I'm really missing it! I'm on Reintro Day 33 after a W37 and won't return to cheap bacon. Love the flavour, texture and taste of sugar free bacon! It's one of the things I am looking forward to when I get home.

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If you are used to stripe bacon (American Bacon) what we do, since we can't hardly find compliant bacon where we live, is we buy sliced pork belly from Costco (you can also hit up a butcher for it and have them slice it for you there). We use salt, smoked paprika, and fresh ground black pepper to make a rub for it. Cook it up the normal way. Dunno what to tell you about Canadian bacon other than you might be able to use a pork loin sliced thin. Think you need to trim the fat off it for Canadian bacon, but can't remember off hand. Basically it's the base meat with out curing and just the Whole30 compliant ingredients you use for seasoning. We use the smoked Paprika to give it the smoked taste since we don't have a smoke set up the moment.

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@Nephryna Thanks for that! I really appreciate you coming by and explaining that to me - I bet that would be delicious! I think I can wait to get back to bacon when I return to Canada but I will try your recommendation when I get home.

Here's a little known fact - no one in Canada eats Canadian Bacon as bacon - we all pretty much just eat the trimmed, skinny rashers that you called stripe bacon. On rare occasions a few of us eat smoked back bacon but most don't. It's a funny thing but the only association back bacon has with Canada is that we exported it in great amounts for Britain (who love it in their bacon butty sandwiches) during the wars. So, now you know :)

Thanks again for the fantastic recipe! I don't really have a way to smoke it either so I'll give this a shot as is.

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4 hours ago, Lorna from Canada said:

@SugarcubeOD That's too bad about not finding sugar free bacon in Vancouver - I haven't had any trouble finding Wellshire Farms and Pederson's sugar free bacons at Whole Foods in Toronto and surrounding area. 

You know, it's been a while since I looked (not being a huge bacon fan myself).  It occurs to me that they  might stock these now... I work across from WF so I can go check next time I'm there.

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That is very good to know @True Primal. Hubs and I take pre-cooked bacon when we backpack or canoe trip - I was thinking I'd have to give up bacon on these excursions which would be very sad since we just discovered an amazing shelf stable egg product last year (OvaEasy www.nutriom.com) and our bacon and egg and potato hash breakfast miles from the nearest road (or cell tower but that's another story) are an amazing part of our trips. I'm excited - can you tell? :)

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