How to tell if the green colour on your bacon is normal or potentially dangerous

Even that most delicious and delectable of things can be dangerous if not paid proper attention to.

Humanity's love for bacon is well documented by this point, and for a while there you couldn't move on the internet for people proclaiming their love for the thing.

The memes may have died down but the love for bacon is still there, only there are some people who look at their rashers and get concerned over the creeping green hue.

Yummy, but you wouldn't want to eat it if it was rotting. (Getty Stock Photo)

If you look at bacon there's a chance you'll see a bit of a green sheen on it, which is all due to the preservation process.

In most cases, the green look is pretty normal, and if you want to tell whether your meat has gone off, then you're better off checking the use-by date - as well as trying to figure out whether it smells sour and feels slimy.

If that's the case then you'd better not risk it, and, of course, you'd be a fool to take risks around raw meat in the first place.

Seeing green on your bacon by itself isn't massive cause for concern, but the stench and slimy texture coupled with a change in appearance is when you should start to worry.

After that, your bacon belongs in the bin and definitely shouldn't be gobbled down your gullet, otherwise you might end up seriously unwell.

As a general rule, you should follow the use-by date on the packet the bacon came in, as while you can try to push your luck, your prize might be not being able to stray too far from your toilet for a while.

If you're still on the fence then bacon can last unopened in a pack for a couple of weeks in a fridge and up to eight months in a freezer, but once you peel that wrapping back, it's more like one week in the fridge.

"It didn't smell great and it felt slimy, but what's the worst that could happen." - Someone in for a very bad time. (Getty Stock Photo)

In the worst case,s not respecting the rotting nature of raw meat can leave you with all sorts of nasty viruses.

Most bacon you see on supermarket shelves goes through something called 'wet curing', where salt, sugar, seasonings, sodium nitrate and other chemicals are mixed into a brine that the food is soaked in.

When those chemicals react with something called myoglobin, which is found in pork, it can produce the green colour.

At the end of the day, you ought to trust your nose and trust your gut instinct over your desire for aforementioned gut to contain bacon.