You can cure foods yourself with smoke or by packing them with salt. A combination of salt, sugar, and other flavors tastes better, though. Cured bacon technically means any form of preserved bacon.

Cured hot dogs contain chemicals called nitrites and nitrates, which help maintain food safety but may increase a person's cancer risk. While one might think that uncured dogs don't contain these ...

Meat is often the source of food-borne illness when not prepared correctly. If fresh meat is not expeditiously cooked, frozen or preserved (cured), it can become a host for harmful bacteria.

Foods high in added nitrates, such as cured meat, aren't high enough in antioxidants to keep them from breaking down into nitrosamines. Eating a lot of foods with added nitrates can increase your ...