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Jane Says: You Shouldn’t Be Afraid of Nitrites

December 29, 2015 / Bruce Steele / Uncategorized
We get more nitrites from our saliva than we consume in products such as hot dogs or bacon.

(Photo: John Anthony Rizo/Getty Images)

“My family and I would love to indulge occasionally in good-quality bacon, sausages, hot dogs, and other cured meats, but I worry about the nitrites. Aren’t they dangerous?”
—Caleb James

To get a handle on nitrites, it helps to understand the role salting plays in curing meats. In On Food and Cooking, food scientist Harold McGee writes that salting, like drying, preserves meat by depriving bacteria and molds of water. “The addition of salt—sodium chloride—to meat creates such a high concentration of dissolved sodium and chloride ions outside the microbes that the water inside their cells is drawn out, salt is drawn in, and their cellular machinery is disrupted. The microbes either die or slow down drastically.” Chemistry is inherently operatic, when you think about it.

Other salts, such as those found in rocks, water, and even vegetables (hold that thought!), also play a critical role in curing meats. One of them, potassium nitrate, has been pressed into service for a very long time. Potassium nitrate’s common name is saltpeter (from sal and petra, the Latin words for “salt” and “rock”) because early food preservers scraped the saltlike crystalline substance off the nearest boulder to preserve their kill with. It wasn’t until around 1900 that scientists discovered that certain salt-tolerant microorganisms transform a small portion of nitrate into nitrite, which, in a genuine aha moment, turned out to be the true active curing agent. Once this was known, McGee explains, producers could replace saltpeter in the curing mixture with much smaller doses of pure nitrite. This is now the rule except when it comes to traditional dry-cured hams, for example, “where prolonged ripening benefits from the ongoing bacterial production of nitrite from nitrate.”

The use of nitrite remains an integral part of traditional curing methods for several reasons:

•   It reacts in the meat to form nitric oxide, which binds to the iron atom in the red pigment myoglobin and prevents the iron from causing the fat to oxidize. That binding also produces the rosy pink-red color of cured meats—what we’ve been used to aesthetically since about the 10th century, when the Romans began adding saltpeter to meat to obtain that desired color.

•   In terms of flavor, it contributes a characteristic sharpness that keeps evolving; a country ham aged for 18 months, for instance, has had time to develop a deep, resonant whang. And because nitrite is a powerful antioxidant, it helps keep the flavor of cured meats vibrant and free from off-flavors.

•   Nitrite also squashes a variety of pathogens, including, most important, Clostridium botulinum, the bacterium that can cause rare but deadly botulism. Botulus is a Latin word for “sausage,” by the way, and the bacterium came by its name from its pathological association with Wurstvergiftung, or “sausage poisoning,” first investigated in the late 18th century in Germany.

But if you’re worried about consuming these preserving agents, let me break this to you as gently as I can: Even if you wouldn’t touch a ham sandwich, pepperoni pizza, or salumi plate with a 10-foot pole, you can no more avoid nitrate and nitrite than fly to the moon. According to sources such as “Human safety controversies surrounding nitrate and nitrite in the diet,” published in the journal Nitric Oxide: Biology and Chemistry, our saliva, surprisingly, “accounts for approximately 93.0% of the total daily ingestion of nitrite while foods account for a very small portion of the overall daily nitrite intake. This is due to the chemical reduction of salivary nitrate to nitrite by commensal bacteria in the oral cavity.” Forget cured meats; if you’re really concerned about nitrite, better stop swallowing.

Or, for that matter, eating vegetables, which contain the largest component (about 87 percent) of our dietary intake of nitrate. Those with the highest levels of nitrate are red beets, spinach, radishes, celery, lettuce, cabbage, fennel, broccoli, cucumbers, and leeks. If you’re interested in diving deeper, check out “Nitrate in vegetables,” a report by the Scientific Panel on Contaminants in the Food Chain of the European Food Safety Authority published in the EFSA Journal. I don’t imagine nitrate smoothies are going to be labeled as such at juice bars anytime soon, but optimizing the nitrate content in beet juice is of great interest to athletes and sports nutritionists.

While we’re on the subject of vegetables, let’s take a moment to contemplate “nitrite-free” bacon, hot dogs, etc. If you read the packages carefully, you’ll notice that what they actually say is “no nitrates or nitrites added.” Big difference in meaning there. What the producers use instead is celery powder or celery juice, both concentrated sources of nitrate, which is converted to nitrite by a bacterial culture.

An organic or natural hot dog may contain better-quality meat, but it also may contain just as much nitrate/nitrite or more as your everyday ballpark frank. In a 2011 business piece for The New York Times, William Neuman cited a study published in the Journal of Food Protection that year, which “found that natural hot dogs had anywhere from one-half to 10 times the amount of nitrite than conventional hot dogs contained. Natural bacon had from about a third as much nitrite as a conventional brand to more than twice as much.” Meat producers don’t have it easy in this case; truly nitrite-free products routinely fail in the marketplace because consumers don’t like them—people are accustomed to the color and flavor that comes with the curing process. But it’s high time the USDA took a fresh look at what is one heck of a confusing labeling issue.

So what makes nitrate and nitrite so controversial in the first place? In large enough amounts they are indeed toxic, the way anything is, even water. The main toxic effect is methemoglobinemia, a rare (and reversible) condition. Accidental poisonings aside, you would have to ingest thousands of hot dogs at a single sitting in order to overdose. The most eaten by Joey Chestnut, who won his eighth Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest this year, is 61.

But cancer, of course, is everyone’s main concern. The potential of nitrate/nitrite to form carcinogenic N-nitrosamines in cured meats was first identified in 1971, according to the historical summary in the Nitric Oxide article mentioned above. “Their formation can take place only under special conditions where secondary amines are present, nitrite is available to react, near neutral pH is found, and product temperatures reach greater than 130°C, such as during the frying of bacon.”

The resulting shit show—er, groundswell of public concern—led to new regulations that lowered the amount of added nitrites, and new production practices were implemented. Among those practices was the addition of ascorbic acid (aka vitamin C, sodium ascorbate, erythorbic acid, sodium erythorbate), which inhibits the chemical reaction that can lead to the formation of nitrosamines. Additional limits exist for bacon: Nitrate is not permitted, so that actual concentrations of nitrite can be more precisely controlled; it’s also required to have either 550 parts per million added sodium erythorbate or sodium ascorbate, regardless of curing method, to inhibit the potential for nitrosamine formation during frying.

In a 2009 nationwide survey of cured meats and vegetables, it was “concluded that consistently lower levels of residual nitrate and nitrite than those from a survey reported by the National Academy of Sciences in 1981 existed.”

“Residual nitrite levels of 7 ppm in cooked sausages (hot dogs), 7 ppm in bacon, and 7 ppm in hams which have fallen from 10–31 ppm, 12–42 ppm, and 16–37 ppm, respectively, when compared to data reported in the NAS study,” the study continued. Overall, the survey found a nearly 80 percent reduction in nitrite levels in food products between 1975 and 2009. “Based on this data,” the authors write, “it can be concluded that cured meats provide minimal contributions to the human intake amounts of nitrate and nitrite.”

Interestingly, the Nitric Oxide piece also points out that in the 1990s, a new consumer product containing nitrate was introduced. “Toothpaste for sensitive teeth is now common and contains high levels (5% or 50,000 ppm (mg/kg)) of potassium nitrate. While under FDA regulatory purview, this newer source of human exposure has had no public controversy which is an interesting social question considering the debate concerning cured meats and the known salivary reduction of nitrate to nitrite.”

The advice to avoid cured meats because of possible risks related to cancer continues to resurface periodically. But since 1981, when the National Academy of Sciences first examined the scientific literature and concluded there was no link between nitrate/nitrite consumption and human cancers, there have been hundreds of studies that have examined the potential health risks. Aside from a few studies with demonstrably weak epidemiological data, the vast majority of studies have found no link.

Although research has failed to prove that nitrate or nitrite causes cancer, it has turned up a number of intriguing health benefits and possible pharmacological roles. The nitrites in our saliva, for example, seem to help protect us against foodborne pathogens and stomach ailments. And nitric oxide—the stuff that fixes the color in cured meats—has been found to be a signaling molecule, telling arteries when to expand (thus regulating blood pressure) and immune cells when to kill bacteria, and it helps brain cells communicate with one another. A lack of nitric oxide production in our bodies can lead to all sorts of unfortunate consequences, including hypertension, atherosclerosis, and thrombosis resulting in heart attack and stroke. The significance of this was of such paramount importance that the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to three American scientists for its discovery. I like to think they celebrated with a weenie roast.


Read the original post: http://www.takepart.com/

nitrites

The Pork Obsessives: Inside The Secret Online Society Inspiring America’s Best Chefs

December 29, 2015 / Bruce Steele / What Chefs Say
pigsociety3

Behind the James Beard Award and the burgeoning restaurant empire, Linton Hopkins is really just an obsessive pork nerd. The Atlanta-based chef founded the Fellowship of Country Ham Slicers, which celebrates the craft of hand-slicing aged legs of swine, and created a collector’s edition Country Hams of the South placemat (read: treasure map) for the Atlanta Food & Wine Festival. The website for Holeman and Finch, his casual outpost in Atlanta, has a very scientific-looking photo on its homepage that claims ham can cure virtually any malady.

Hopkins’ devotion to swine is borderline religious, so it’s fair to ask: Where would a person like him find spiritual kinship with people who worship pork as much as he does?

The answer is The Salt Cured Pig—a private, invite-only group that can be found on the Facebook super highway somewhere between Bronies Unite Mid-Atlantic and Nuke the Whales.


“You can trust that The Salt Cured Pig is a community of people who actually care about how we procure, practice, and preserve our craft, “ said Hopkins.

pattersonuseThe Salt Cured Pig founder John Patterson has seen the group grow to over 8,000 members. 

I. A Global Network of Swine Fanatics

The Salt Cured Pig was founded in 2010 by Michigan native John Patterson, who has since watched his cultish community of swine enthusiasts grow to more than 8,000 members. An average of 100 new people are invited into the group every week by friends already on the inside.

This is a place where rockstar butchers and unadulterated porknography take precedence over the media’s breathless rediscovery of edible plant life, and Patterson loves it. And why wouldn’t he? America’s most knowledgeable farmers, meat processors, butchers, charcutiers, chefs, and educators have essentially open-sourced their collective wisdom in his forum.

America’s most knowledgeable farmers, meat processors, butchers, charcutiers, chefs, and educators have open-sourced their collective wisdom in the forum. It’s like getting private batting lessons from George Brett, the Kansas City Royals Hall of Famer


“This was a selfish venture in the beginning,” said Patterson. “I bankrupted myself buying cured meats at Zingerman’s one day and decided, if people have been doing this for thousands of years, I should just do it myself.”

The first leg of The Salt Cured Pig journey is all about Patterson’s original vision of setting out on one’s own into the wide world of DIY curing. Certainly that was my experience when I joined shortly after the group’s inception. For the better part of that first year of membership, my 900-square-foot abode in Washington, D.C. was filled with various meat-curing experiments. Pancetta strung up in the kitchen window and pork jowl hanging from an old planter hook in the corner. Every time I had a question or near meltdown, I went to the group.

Answers would come from people like Josh and Jessica Applestone, the forebears of nouveau butchery at Fleisher’s Pasture-Raised Meats, or Kate Hill, an American expat living in Gascony who runs a pork-centric cooking school, Kitchen at Camont, with a family of French master pig farmers and butchers named the Chapolards. It was like getting private batting lessons from George Brett, the Kansas City Royals Hall of Famer who was my childhood hero. I achieved delicious successes and a few spectacular failures (amazingly, my wife still agreed to marry me that year). More than once or twice, I considered training to become a butcher and opening a shop.


“Where else can charcuterie enthusiasts around the world get access to an incredible network like this 24 hours a day?” asked Hill, a group administrator. “When I’m having a morning café au lait in France, someone in Tucson is tending his smoker, a charcutier in Bangkok is talking to a pig farmer in Australia, and a Korean chef is sharing his wares with us all.”

II. Chefs Find Inspiration

A search of the group brings up some culinary star-power, including Craig Deihl, Jonathan Waxman, Nate Anda, Paul Kahan, David Varley, Ryan Farr, Lee Anne Wong, Tom Mylan, and Celina Tio. Peter Kaminsky, whose 2005 book Pig Perfect introduced the world to Chuck Talbott’s pioneering research on heritage pig breeds and flavor, is also a member (as is Talbott). Despite their high-profile status, some still look to The Salt Cured Pig as a place for continuous learning and experimentation.

craigdiehljohnsmoakChefs like Rick McKee (pictured above) and Craig Deihl credit the group with inspiring dishes that appear on his menu. (Photo: John Smoak)


“What’s really important to me is the way people are open and post photos about failure, which is so important to getting better,” said Deihl, whose charcuterie work at Cypress and Artisan Meat Share in Charleston is second to none in the U.S. right now. “Watching people share non-pork ideas, like salmon belly nduja and shrimp sausage and swordfish bacon, has also made me think about what new things I can do in the restaurants.”

VIPs like Deihl have undoubtedly had an impact in The Salt Cured Pig forum, but the lesser-known professionals represent the group’s real value. These are the workaday evangelists who are carrying forward the movement for responsible pig husbandry and curing.

“I think it is a really valuable resource for anyone in the restaurant business,” said Justin Brunson, owner and executive chef at Old Major, the Denver Bacon Company, and a constellation of other meat-driven establishments in the Mile High City. “I get tips on chili pastes, peppers, and salts for sausage and curing in the group all the time, and the members gave me a ton of help on specs when I built my first curing chamber.”


Brunson is known among pork nerds, and he and others like him are the most active in the group’s conversation strings, offering hard-won wisdom to less-seasoned members and doing their best to keep the group focused on safety, tradition, and quality. Others include Cathy Barrow, the writer behind MrsWheelBarrow.com; Adam Danforth, the James Beard Award-winning author and butcher; Carl Blake, who runs Rustik Rooster Farms in Iowa; Brady Lowe, the founder of Cochon 555; Bob Perry, Chef in Residence at the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture; and Bob Del Grosso, a micropaleontologist by training who has taught for decades at the Culinary Institute of America and other institutions.

“Before the advent of groups like this, the likelihood that someone like Carl Blake would be sharing hog-farming tips with people in Michigan and Austria was almost nil,” said Del Grosso. “During my tenure as a Salt Cured Pig administrator I’ve seen countless examples of people who, inspired by something they read there, pick up knives and saws to butcher their food, pick up stakes and move to farms. That is significant.”

“I look at the group every day to see what people are doing,” said Brandon Johns, chef-owner of Grange Kitchen & Bar, an Ann Arbor restaurant that counts other members among its regular patrons. “It’s great to see them using old-school technique, like hand-cutting sausage, that you can’t find anywhere anymore, and I’m always getting inspiration to try new things.”

There’s the issue of the pesky vegetarians who have regularly infiltrated the group, calling ironically for Patterson’s slaughter.


With all the collective wisdom and shared support, is the forum having a wider impact? Anecdotally, those of us who have been in the group since early on have seen growth in the number of heritage-pig farms, professional curing operations, and restaurants doing in-house charcuterie. According to a three-year study by the Livestock Conservancy, an organization that works on genetic conservation and promotion of heritage-breed animals, the numbers of heritage-breed pigs overall have been growing in recent years. Just a couple days ago, member Stephen Prochaska announced the opening of his new Cedar Rapids, Iowa sausage shop, The Sausage Foundry, and thanked the group for insights and input.

“A goal in the beginning was to make sure that these things wouldn’t just be fads,” said Patterson. “I hope we are helping secure a better future for meat in America.”

III. The Swine Schism, Militant Vegetarians, and the Power of Community

That remains to be seen, but we wouldn’t even be having this conversation without the committed core constituency in The Salt Cured Pig. Whether the center can hold is another question, because Patterson’s ride hasn’t all been pillowy white fatback and silky sausage gravy. The group has, at times, been greased by drama.

Firstly, there’s the issue of the pesky vegetarians who have infiltrated the group regularly, calling (ironically) for Patterson’s slaughter and, on more than one occasion, getting him thrown off of Facebook (he maintains aliases including Bobby Berkshire, named after the famous breed of curing hogs). One woman was so aggressive that Patterson did a little research and cornered her with Google Maps evidence of a charcoal grill in her backyard. She backed off and the veg hackers have been quiet recently.

Patterson’s ride hasn’t all been pillowy white fatback and silky sausage gravy. The group, like so many young phenomena, has at times been greased by drama.


Then there was the infamous swine schism. In the early days, when The Salt Cured Pig was small, most of the members were in it to share advanced practices, but things changed as the numbers roared upwards. Some griped that bacon became too dominant a theme (is that possible?) and the comment strings got too heated and meme-heavy. The full administrative team tried to exert some quality control, but the divide had already calcified. A breakaway faction of accomplished home charcutiers, led by bloggers Scott Stegen and Jason Molinari, peeled off and formed Sausage Debauchery, a rival group with a less freewheeling and more pedantic bent. To date, Sausage Debauchery has more than 5,400 members.

“I think the two communities are alternate sides of the same coin: The Salt Cured Pig is great for people just getting into the curing and overcoming their fear, and Sausage Debauchery is like a watering hole for what I call the ‘meat mafia,’ those of us who live the craft every day,” said Hank Shaw, the James Beard Award-winning blogger and author of Hunt, Gather, Cook: Finding the Forgotten Feast and Duck, Duck, Goose.

paolo
Paolo Sossai, a spiritual guide for pork forums like The Salt Cured Pig, embodied the restless pursuit of quality swine products.


Many people hold dual membership and foster friendships in both groups, and the kinship shows through more than any split—as the story of Paolo Sossai makes clear. Sossai, who died from cancer last month, may have been the pioneering digital community organizer for home charcutiers as the head of the Salumi Casalinghi Forum, an Italian listserv where he shared old-world techniques and facilitated discussion on the craft. He was a mentor to many in both The Salt Cured Pig and Sausage Debauchery, dropping in and out of discussions in both groups to offer patient, broken-English–infused explanations of things like the definition of porchetta di testa, and the regional difference between sopressa and sopressata. His death brought forth an outpouring of sympathy.


“Paolo’s legacy is the real sense of community in terms of passion for craft, willingness to help and a wonderful intolerance of showiness or lack of humility,” said John Gower, a member of both The Salt Cured Pig and Sausage Debauchery, who raises pigs on a sustainable farm in North Devon, England. “In life and death, he has only encouraged this sense all the more amongst many of us.”

Sossai, like Patterson, Stegen, and many others, was the bond that held the communities together and pushed them forward towards a vision of better, more sustainable farms and food. Which reminds me: I have a big batch of heritage pork shoulder in the freezer that needs my attention.


Read the original post: http://firstwefeast.com/eat/the-pork-obsessives/

Craig Deihl, John Patterson, Paolo Sossai, Rick McKee, The Salt Cured Pig

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