Question about nitrates...

[Tarielena]

I buy Applegate Farms brand bacon and pepperoni to avoid nitrates, however the bacon has celery juice listed as an ingredient, which to my understanding causes natural nitrates to occur. My question is, is there truly a benefit to buying this type of bacon? Or are they just trying to get you to spend more money on essentially the same product?

Are nitrates that occur "naturally" better for you than the nitrates added to some food?

If anyone has some good researched links in regards to this issue I would love to see them.

[applecider]

I'm interested too...

[kallyn]

I think that commercially processed meat may still be in the not-so-good camp, but it's not because of nitrates IMO. And yes, the celery juice and such are sources of natural nitrates.

Here's a pretty good writeup about nitrates:
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.co...-in-leafy.html

And here:
http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/...acon-make.html

The Applegate Farms stuff may still be a better choice because the actual meat is better though, even though it really does contain nitrates.

[serenbat]

I really don't have a problem with the use of celery juice, since it is also found in my local water and I can't do anything about that trace amount


http://www.applegatefarms.com/resour..._nitrites.aspx

www.marksdailyapple.com/sodium-nitrite-meat/

[Intoit]

Originally Posted by Tarielena

... the bacon has celery juice listed as an ingredient, which to my understanding causes natural nitrates to occur. My question is, is there truly a benefit to buying this type of bacon? Or are they just trying to get you to spend more money on essentially the same product?

Are nitrates that occur "naturally" better for you than the nitrates added to some food?

As far as the benefit goes, I think that (1) it's dependent on your preference to "cleaner" foods and your feeling about nitrates/nitrites and (2) if consuming nitrates/nitrites has any noticeable effect on your body.

I myself get migraine headaches after consuming any type of processed meat product that has nitrates/nitrites (supposedly it's the rebound effect on the vascular system? I hope I never have to take nitroglycerin for anything!!)

I also juice a lot of celery, more so now that it's so warm outside, and never have had a problem with headaches after consuming celery juice. Every now and then I also get a hankering for fatty bacon or honey ham, and will gladly spend the extra $$ for the preservative free stuff because I can eat it without problems as well. Hope this helps a little.

[Tarielena]

Thanks for the responses everyone. I read through all the links that were provided. It kind of sounds like this may not be an issue to obsess over since there are nitrates/ites present either way. Maybe it would be a good idea to try cooking the bacon slower at a lower temperature to reduce the conversion to nitrosamines?

But as far as just better quality meat goes, where do you get your bacon? Do you all have local farm sources? I know that the more fat in meat the more important it is to get good stuff. I am assuming/hoping that the Applegate Farm's brand is at least better than regular commercial bacon, because they sell it at my local health food store which is very good about only carrying good brands.