> Generally: if it tastes like what you expect ham or bacon to taste like, or it looks like what you expect it to look like, it's cured with nitrates.

So you are saying that even if I got my own raw pork belly from the butcher and learned how to cure it properly with salt, its look and taste would still be inferior to the delicious blocks of bacon I get at any chain grocery store?

Benton's is great bacon, but:

(1) You can look at that price tag and see why it's unlikely to be your go-to bacon,

(2) Last I checked, Benton's used a nitrate cure, and

(3) Seriously, intensely smoked food (Benton's bacon qualifies) is probably going to be more carcinogenic from the smoking compounds than from the cure. Unlike nitrate->N-nitrosamine, we're pretty clear on how smoked food causes gastric cancer.

If you live near a large enough community of former Yugoslavians, you can find nitrate-free Suho Meso, which (when it's good) is like a cross between bacon and prosciutto. However, it contains all the carcinogens of smoked meat. That said the largest brand in the US (US-produced, actually) is not nitrate-free.