When folks lived on the farm and raised their own meat, hams were cured with sugar, salt, no nitrates nor silicone. RegulatorCountry is talking about homegrown natural stuff - not store bought toxic meats.
I brought it up more or less just to illustrate the antibacterial properties of sugar. It didn’t enter my mind that everybody didn’t grow up with grandparents who had a smokehouse on their farm and cured their own meats. Maybe it wasn’t the greatest example for that reason, but you certainly can prevent meat from spoiling and decaying for years with either salt or sugar. They are preservative because they’re antibacterial.