Are Nitrates Really Dangerous?
(another reason NOT to fear bacon and hotdogs)
By: Nick Pineault
Author and Food Investigator: Truth About Fat Burning Foods
First of all, nitrites and nitrates are not exactly the same, but I’ll use them interchangeably for simplicity’s sake in this article.
Well, the consumers fear it so much that companies have started selling “nitrite-free” products in grocery stores. After all, even the Mayo Clinic says that sodium nitrite could increase your risks of heart disease.
But is the fear of nitrites overblown?
Why You Should Fear Your Saliva…
Avoiding all sources of nitrites and nitrates would involve you having the driest mouth in the History of mankind. You see, as Chris Kresser puts it…
“ […] nitrites are produced by your own body in greater amounts than can be obtained from food, and salivary nitrite accounts for 70-90% of our total nitrite exposure. In other words, your spit contains far more nitrites than anything you could ever eat.”
And when it comes to food, I’ve got “bad” news for you.
Veggies contain way more naturally-occurring nitrites than processed meats. In fact, one serving of arugula contains more nitrites than 467 hot dogs…
(Sorry if that made you spit out your arugula, goat cheese and walnuts salad in shock.)
“Nitrite-free” Is A Joke
If you’re paying more for “nitrite-free” meats, you’re getting misled (read: scammed).
Instead of being cured with sodium nitrite, these meats are cured with celery salt.
And guess what? Celery salt gets transformed to nitrites during the curing process.
In plain English… the “nitrite-free” meats probably contain way more nitrites that the regular version.
(Not that it matters, because like I said, nitrites are not very dangerous to begin with.)
Breaking News: Nitrites And Nitrates Are NOT A Threat
The fear of nitrites and nitrates is overblown.
There are a ton of other things you should worry about when it comes to food, like GMOs.
On the science side, there’s a ton of research showing that nitrites and nitrates do not accumulate inside the body, and are quickly flushed in urine:
– 25% of the nitrites we consume is converted into salivary nitrite, 20% converted into nitrite, and the rest is excreted in the urine within 5 hours of ingestion.
– Any nitrate that is absorbed has a very short half-life, disappearing from our blood in under five minutes.
– Some nitrite in our stomach reacts with gastric contents, forming nitric oxide which may have many beneficial effects.
What About Nitrosamines?
The fear of nitrites and nitrates comes from the fact that some of them can transform into nitrosamines while cooking.
Nitrosamines are potentially carcinogenic, so that’s definitely a legit concern. But that’s exactly why manufacturers use vitamin C (ascorbic acid) when curing their meats.
It turns out that vitamin C or even vitamin E offers a protective antioxidant effect on the meat, and prevents the formation of nitrosamines.
On top of that, my recommendation of sticking to pasture-raised pork as much as possible still stands, for a ton of reasons.
One of them being the fact that grain-fed, commercially-raised pork has been shown to create way more nitrosamines when cooked than its pasture-raised cousin.
The reason is simple in my mind: lard from pasture-raised animals is way more stable and contains less fragile polyunsaturated fats than the fat from grain-fed animals.
Conclusion
Here’s the simple conclusion.
There are a ton of things you should worry about when it comes to food & exercise, but nitrates and nitrites are simply
NOT one of them.
That being said, try to eat traditionally cured, pastured-raised meats from local farms as much as possible. They are way healthier, and way safer, and WILL NOT affect your exercise.
The “Nitrate Myth” is just one of the many reasons I investigated over 503 studies and to create my best-selling nutrition bible:
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