Salt Peter and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, and why the USDA are bad little monkeys
Scientists link Hot Dogs and Bacon to Lung Disease I just started reading "SALT: A World History", so its somewhat of a coincidence that I came across the article above linking nitrate ingestion (specifically sodium nitrate used to cure bacon, hams and sausages) to COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). Ironically, bacon, ham and other similar products not treated with nitrates (sodium nitrite and sodium nitrate, specifically) are deemed by the USDA as "uncured" and can be labeled and sold as such; and in fact the sole difference between a cured and uncured bacon is this minor, technical distinction. Some of the curing methods the USDA recognizes are listed here: Ham and Food Safety Curiously, while some nitrates occur in impure sea salts (mineral nitrates) and from vegetable sources, USDA curing almost certainly requires the addition of synthetic nitrates that implies an industrial food scale. To wit, artisinal "cured" products may be labeled as un...