What's the Difference Between Commercial and Artisanal Bacon? - CHOW Tip

When it comes to bacon, many people subscribe to the "even when it's bad it's good" philosophy. Scott Kveton, founder of Bacn.com, might agree, but he does warn consumers to check the ingredient lists on commercial bacon. If water is listed as one of the first ingredients, beware-- when you cook your bacon, the water will boil out. And boiled bacon is not delicious.

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TRANSCRIPT
So oftentimes, when you're going into the grocery store, there's lots of what we call shelf bacon. And this is the stuff that is really thin, super fatty, and they use a lot of water to actually put the smoked flavoring into it. So the problem with water in your bacon is that, when you cook it, you have to boil that water off. Who wants boiled bacon? The finished product is kinda chewy, a little bland. Not only that, because of the water, the bacon itself will shrink quite a bit. You're not getting what you had really hoped you were going to get, this big package of bacon. There's other type of bacon out there, more artisanal type bacon's that are cured with salt. It's a much better flavor. The texture's much better. Not only that, because it's been cured, a lot of the water has been actually taken out of it so when you cook it up, it doesn't shrink as much. Artisanal bacon is going to be a little more expensive but you get what you pay for with a really fantastic finished product.