Bacon nitrates: do they lower blood pressure or raise risk?

Dr. Berry has said for years that bacon is a health food, and people push back because of nitrates, nitrites and cancer. In this video Berry cooks four eggs, two pounds of ground beef and half a pound of smoked cured bacon in an air fryer while explaining what is believed to happen in the body. This article summarizes Berry's reasoning and adds some context you should weigh before changing what you eat.

Two kinds of cured bacon

Berry explains that there are two ways to cure bacon. Cheap supermarket bacon uses a chemically derived nitrate, which is the same kind of compound that many plant foods contain. Berry says beet greens, celery and several greens have 5 to 10 times more nitrates than Berry's bacon.

Berry also points out a labeling quirk. In the United States, a bacon marked "uncured" or "contains no nitrates" can still contain nitrates, because they came from celery or beet greens. Legally the label can say nitrate free even if it has more nitrates than the cheap version.

What your body does with nitrates, according to Berry

Berry's argument is that the body treats nitrates as useful, not toxic:

When you swallow nitrates, your salivary glands pull them out of the blood and concentrate them about 10 times in saliva, so you swallow them twice.
Your kidneys do not flush them out. They hold nitrate in the blood supply.
Bacteria in your mouth turn nitrate into nitrite.
Your body turns nitrite into nitric oxide, a vasodilator that relaxes blood vessels and lowers blood pressure.

The logic is that if nitrates were a poison, the body would not have a mechanism to concentrate them. Berry also says nitrite is not worse than nitrate, and claims people on keto or carnivore diets enjoy excellent blood pressure because of this supply.

Why your mouth bacteria matter

This is where mouthwash comes in. Berry says a proper human diet colonizes the mouth with good bacteria, while a high carb, sugar added grain diet leads to gingivitis and dental problems. Berry cites studies in which people used chlorhexidine twice a day, which kills mouth bacteria. In one study of 19 healthy adults, salivary nitrite dropped by 90% and blood pressure went up within a single day. The advice is to stop killing your mouth bacteria.

Berry adds that two pharmaceutical efforts tried capsules of nitrate and an inhaled form, but taking a pill or inhaling it did not work as well as eating the real foods, and both trials failed to show enough therapeutic benefit.

Cooking tips from the video

Berry also shares a few practical habits:

Cook the egg white until done, because of avidin, but leave the yolk runny to preserve vitamins.
Berry does not cook ground beef to death, which is said to protect some B vitamins. The meat was smelled first and it was within the sale by date. Food safety guidance for ground beef is stricter, so use your own judgment.
Mind oxalates if you rely on celery and beet greens, since calcium oxalate kidney stones are a concern.

The caveats

Be careful here. The claim that bacon is a health food runs against mainstream guidance. The World Health Organization's cancer agency classifies processed meat as carcinogenic to humans, and most health authorities recommend limiting it. A physiological mechanism in saliva does not by itself prove that a food is safe in the long run. The video also relies on the idea that "nitrates are good for you" without presenting the full studies, though Berry says research links will go in the show notes and encourages viewers to look into it themselves. A single mechanism and one small study cannot settle long term cancer risk, so treat the claim as a hypothesis to check, not a green light.

What is worth keeping is the general principle: nitrates come mostly from vegetables, your mouth microbiome is part of the process, and aggressive antibacterial mouthwash may have a cost. If you have high blood pressure, talk with your doctor before relying on food or changing your oral care routine.

Practical takeaways

If you want the useful parts without the risk, you can keep these ideas in mind:

Get nitrates from vegetables such as beet greens, celery and leafy greens, which come with fiber and other nutrients.
Brush and floss, and ask your dentist before using an antibacterial mouthwash every day.
Measure your blood pressure at home and track it over time instead of guessing.
If you eat bacon, treat it as an occasional food, not a daily health strategy.
Never stop blood pressure medication without talking to your doctor.

Conclusion

Berry's message is to question what you hear online and read the evidence yourself. The enthusiasm for bacon is a minority view, so verify it before you act on it.