Shoulda bought Dominoes a couple years ago
On Monday, April 3, 2017 at 7:04:24 PM UTC-4, wrote:
> On Monday, April 3, 2017 at 3:30:48 PM UTC-5, Jinx the Minx wrote:
> >
> > I'm not sure I've ever seen foods labeled as "nitrate free". I think it's
> > more a case of the consumer reading "no added nitrates other than those
> > occurring in celery juice" or "nitrate free except for ...." and concluding
> > themselves that what they're eating is somehow nitrate free when the
> > reality is that it isn't. It's only that the nitrates added are naturally
> > occurring in those added food substances (celery juice/salt, etc.) and not
> > artificially generated. Sometimes that "naturally occurring" nitrate load
> > in uncured meats is higher than it would be in the cured version. People
> > believe what they want to believe.
> >
> > --
> > jinx the minx
> >
> >
> I could be entirely wrong but I don't think 'naturally occurring'
> nitrites or nitrates are higher or as high in levels than meats
> preserved WITH nitrites or nitrates. With no added nitrites or
> nitrates I suppose that's the reason the Applegate pepperoni is
> only available in the refrigerated case and has to be kept
> refrigerated vs. Hormel shelf stable pepperonis.
Because this is behind a paywall:
When we fried up strips of our favorite supermarket bacon, Farmland Hickory Smoked, along with Farmland All-Natural Uncured Bacon (€śno nitrate or nitrite added€ť), tasters found the samples virtually identical in taste and texture.
To quantify the nitrite and nitrate levels in these bacons, we sent three packages of each type to a lab for testing. For comparison, we also sent three packages of the Best Buy from our tasting of artisanal bacon, Applegate Farms Uncured Sunday Bacon (labeled €śno nitrites added€ť). As we expected, all of the bacons contained nitrite and nitrate, and the nitrite levels were well within U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines of no more than 120 parts per million (ppm). But to our surprise, the uncured bacons actually had higher levels of nitrite than the cured meat: Farmland Hickory Smoked Bacon registered an average of 9.7 ppm nitrite (and 48 ppm nitrate), while its All-Natural counterpart showed an average of 16.3 ppm nitrite (and 10.3 ppm nitrate). And the Applegate Farms Uncured Sunday Bacon averaged more than three times the level of the regular bacon: 35 ppm nitrite (and nearly as much nitrate, at 44.3 ppm).
The source for that is:
<https://www.cooksillustrated.com/how_tos/5734-nitrate-free-bacon>
Bon appetit!
Cindy Hamilton
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