Turkey bacon is a meat prepared from chopped, formed, cured, and smoked

turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

, commonly marketed as a low-fat alternative to pork

bacon Bacon is a type of salt-cured pork made from various cuts, typically the belly or less fatty parts of the back. It is eaten as a side dish (particularly in breakfasts), used as a central ingredient (e.g., the bacon, lettuce, and tomato sand ...

; it may also be used as a substitute for bacon where religious dietary laws (for example

halal ''Halal'' (; ar, حلال, ) is an Arabic word that translates to "permissible" in English. In the Quran, the word ''halal'' is contrasted with ''haram'' (forbidden). This binary opposition was elaborated into a more complex classification kno ...

Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...

and

kashrut (also or , ) is a set of dietary laws dealing with the foods that Jewish people are permitted to eat and how those foods must be prepared according to Jewish law. Food that may be consumed is deemed kosher ( in English, yi, כּשר), fro ...

Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...

) forbid the consumption of pork products.

Preparation

Turkey bacon can be cooked by pan-frying or deep-frying. Cured turkey bacon made from

dark meat In culinary terms, white meat is meat which is pale in color before and after cooking. In traditional gastronomy, ''white meat'' also includes rabbit, the flesh of milk-fed young mammals (in particular veal and lamb), and sometimes pork. In ecotro ...

can be 90% fat free. It can be used in the same manner as bacon (such as in a

BLT sandwich A BLT is a type of sandwich, named for the initials of its primary ingredients, bacon, lettuce, and tomato. It can be made with varying recipes according to personal preference. Simple variants include using different types of lettuce, toasti ...

), but the low fat content of turkey bacon means it does not shrink while being cooked and has a tendency to stick to the pan, thus making deep-frying a faster and more practical option.

Alternative to pork bacon

Turkey bacon is lower in fat and

calorie The calorie is a unit of energy. For historical reasons, two main definitions of "calorie" are in wide use. The large calorie, food calorie, or kilogram calorie was originally defined as the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of on ...

s than pork bacon, but its lower fat content makes it unsuitable in some situations, such as grilling. It is also known as "facon" , which is amalgamation of the words "fake" and "bacon". As a lower fat alternative, it became popular in America in the early 90s. Turkey bacon is an alternative also for people who do not eat pork for religious or dietary reasons. Pork is haram (not

) to

Muslims Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abraha ...

and treyf (not

kosher (also or , ) is a set of dietary laws dealing with the foods that Jewish people are permitted to eat and how those foods must be prepared according to Jewish law. Food that may be consumed is deemed kosher ( in English, yi, כּשר), fro ...

) to

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

. When Beautiful Brands International, a company from

Tulsa, Oklahoma Tulsa () is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 47th-most populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 census. It is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with ...

, signed a deal with a

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...

n firm to open 120 locations in eight countries in the Middle East, they had to substitute pork

with

turkey bacon in their recipes at

Camille's Sidewalk Cafe Camille's Sidewalk Cafe is a restaurant franchise headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma, specializing in healthful, "fast casual" cuisine. In 2003 Camille's had more than 100 locations, and as of May 2013 had 36 locations in the United States. Camille' ...

locations because

ic customs forbid consumption of pork and non-halal meat.

Nutritional value

Two strips of

Butterball Butterball is a brand of turkey and other poultry products produced by Butterball LLC. The company manufactures food products in the United States and internationally — specializing in turkey, cured deli meats, raw roasts and specialty pr ...

turkey bacon contain 3 grams of

fat In nutrition science, nutrition, biology, and chemistry, fat usually means any ester of fatty acids, or a mixture of such chemical compound, compounds, most commonly those that occur in living beings or in food. The term often refers spec ...

and 50

calories The calorie is a unit of energy. For historical reasons, two main definitions of "calorie" are in wide use. The large calorie, food calorie, or kilogram calorie was originally defined as the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of on ...

(32% of which from fat); turkey bacon from Louis Rich and Mr. Turkey contain 5 and 4 grams of fat, respectively, per two slices. By comparison, two strips of regular pork bacon contain, on average, some 7 grams of fat. Andrew Smith, in '' The Turkey: An American Story'', notes that turkey products (including turkey bacon) contain, on average twice as much

sodium Sodium is a chemical element with the symbol Na (from Latin ''natrium'') and atomic number 11. It is a soft, silvery-white, highly reactive metal. Sodium is an alkali metal, being in group 1 of the periodic table. Its only stable iso ...

as the pork products they replace.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Turkey Bacon Poultry dishes Bacon Smoked meat

Preparation

Alternative to pork bacon

Nutritional value

See also

References