If it doesn’t have nitrites it isn’t bacon. Smoked pork belly is good, but it isn’t bacon.
Basically uncured bacon is a con job, at least most of the time. According to the FDA, If you dig sodium nitrite out of the ground, purify it, mix it with salt, and soak pork belly in it, then you have “cured” bacon. If you grow celery in the same dirt, let is suck up the nitrites, extract the juice, mix with salt and then soak pork belly in it, the FDA requires you to call it “uncured”. The FDA also does not regulate the exact amount of nitrite in “uncured” products, whereas the ratio of nitrite used for cured bacon is strictly regulated. So uncured bacon may or may not have less nitrite than cured bacon, but there is no way to tell. But it definitely has a reasonable amount to get the color and texture of bacon.
There may be some instances of uncured bacon that is really just smoked (which carries its own risks), but it is not that common, and not the majority of “uncured” bacon sold in grocery stores.
