And many Australians must agree, with each citizen expected, on average, to eat more than 15 kilograms of pig meat this year, much of it sliced into rashers.

Yet as the country celebrates National Bacon Week, the question of whether this popular cured meat is killing us remains.

Almost all bacon contains sodium nitrite, which gives it its pink colour, adds to its flavour and protects it from harmful bacteria.

However, when cooked, the preservative can create carcinogens.

The World Cancer Research Fund has linked cured meats with bowel and stomach cancer, and advises against eating them.

But retail watchdog Choice points out that the meat industry argues the risk of developing cancer is much less than the dangers of eating meat contaminated with bacteria, which the nitrites help ward off.

The owner of organic butchery Eco Meats, Gino D'Ambrosio, is one of few ACT butchers who still make bacon ''the old way'', without nitrites.

''I soak it for two or three days in brine, and then it takes about four hours to cook and smoke it,'' he said. But while many customers ask for his ''healthy'' bacon, he admits most prefer the chemically cured product, ''because of its appearance and taste''.

''You see the one with sodium nitrite and the one without it, which is grey and doesn't look like what people think bacon should be like. It has a completely different taste, too; more like a salted roast pork.''

Canberra gastroenterologist Andrew Thomson said yesterday there was mounting evidence linking red meat not only with bowel cancer ''but premature death and all cancers''.

However, he warns against prematurely blaming one type of food, as it's almost impossible to test such theses.

''You can't just have a random sample of people and make them eat cured meat for 20 years, and then tell another group not to eat it. It's the same with all nutritional research: it's very hard to get the sort of scientific certainty one would ideally like,'' he said.