Showing posts with label Nitrate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nitrate. Show all posts

Feb 27, 2015

Nitrates and Nitrites

While it is true that nitrates and nitrites are unhealthy for your body, what most pro-veggie, chicken, and fish nutritionists fail to tell us is that we can easily avoid nitrates and nitrites by simply not burning, charring, and over cooking bacon. It can also be avoided by baking bacon in the oven.

If you include some dairy and citrus with your bacon meal, vitamins A, D and E work to effectively prevent conversion of nitrates and nitrites into toxic nitrosamines in the stomach, rendering them harmless to the body.

Jul 29, 2011

Meat Labeling

Food manufacturers are now pushing the federal government for more truthful labeling that would allow them to tell consumers clearly that some products contain nitrate and nitrite, from natural rather than synthetic sources. The current rules require products that derive the preservatives from natural sources to prominently place the words “Uncured” and “No nitrates or nitrites added” on the label even though they are cured and do contain the chemicals.

A study published earlier this year in The Journal of Food Protection found that natural hot dogs had anywhere from one-half to ten times the amount of nitrite that conventional hot dogs contained. Natural bacon had from about a third as much nitrite as a conventional brand to more than twice as much.

The current U.S.D.A. labeling rules require natural products to indicate there may be naturally occurring nitrate or nitrite, but it often appears in small print. When combined with the more prominently displayed “No nitrates or nitrites added” banner, many consumers are left scratching their heads.

The U.S.D.A. responded by limiting the amount of nitrate and nitrite that goes into processed meats, and today they contain far less than they did 40 years ago.

However, scientists have gained more understanding of the role of nitrate and nitrite in human health and have discovered the preservatives also have benefits, for example, in the healthy functioning of the cardiovascular and immune systems.

Some in the meat industry have seized on these discoveries to dismiss as outdated, the link between nitrite in processed meat and cancer. They insist processed meats are safe. Sounds good to me, bacon and hot dogs need more nitrates and nitrites, like the good ol' days.