Plant Trials of Bacon Made with Lactic Acid Bacteria, Sucrose and Lowered Sodium Nitrite

Bacon prepared with 40 and 80 mg/kg (ppm) sodium nitrite, 0.7% sucrose and a culture of Pediococcus acidilactici (Wisconsin Process), and control bacon prepared with 120 ppm sodium nitrite and no added sucrose or bacterial culture were produced at three commercial bacon production plants. Sodium chloride, phosphate and sodium ascorbate (or sodium erythorbate) levels, as well as other processing conditions such as pumping rate, smokehouse temperature and time, forming and slicing conditions, were those normally used by each plant. Randomly selected samples of each lot were used for a challenge experiment with Clostridium botulinum (types A and B), with ca. 1,000 heat-shocked spores/g of bacon inoculated on each slice, vacuum packaged and incubated at 27°C. Samples were taken periodically up to 56 d of incubation and examined for the presence of botulinal toxin. The challenge experiment revealed that test bacon was substantially greater in antibotulinal properties than the control bacon. Residual nitrite levels of test bacon were lower than those of the control bacon, as were nitrosamines formed upon frying. Average N-nitrospyrrolidine level was 8.6 μg/kg (ppb) in the control, <2.7 ppb in the 80-ppm nitrite product, and <1.6 ppb in the 40-ppm nitrite product. This study indicates that bacon commercially prepared by the Wisconsin Process with 40 or 80 ppm sodium nitrite has a lesser risk of nitrosamine and botulinal toxin formation than bacon prepared with 120 ppm sodium nitrite and no added sucrose and lactic acid bacteria.