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Comment by GordonS | Hacker News Reader

But what specifically is it about processed meat that makes it more of a risk than fresh cuts of meat?

The nitrates used to preserve the meat. Although, your risk is elevated only a tiny fraction compared to say, smoking cigarettes.

But surely not all processed meat uses nitrates?

Correct, but most of them do use it as a preservative. I agree the article should address this instead of just saying processed meats are bad. Also, high quality vitamin C can block the nitrosamine formation if you consume it with your processed meat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxWRxtS_cGI

http://store.naturalnews.com/NanoNutra-Liposomal-Vitamin-C-1...

http://store.naturalnews.com/Optimal-Liposomal-Vitamin-C--5-...

This might not necessarily refute your argument, but I wouldn't rely on Natural News as a source. They're a known source of pseudoscientific drivel.

I don't know of any modern source of health information that I trust completely. That goes for the articles in Natural News and even the things Mike Adams himself publishes. I will admit that it is not uncommon for his reasoning to be biased and one-dimensional. However, I think overall he is really knowledgeable about health and is one of the best sources to learn from. He seems to be really trying to find out the truth about health, and I trust his opinions more than most others. Go back and listen to his earliest radio show episodes. Then look at some of the recent stuff he has done with doing his own independent scientific testing. He is a great source of information about health, but definitely question the reasoning of his arguments and do other research.

Nope. The nitrates themselves aren't the issue.

It's the cooking that's the issue because the nitrates convert to nitrosomenes under high heat.

If nitrates were the issue, then we should stop eating celery because that's where the nitrates in processed meats come from, celery juice.

What about cooked celery? Celery, onions, and garlic is pretty much the base of any vegetable mix for a meal I make.

I'm pretty sure the concentration of nitrates is way smaller in a raw celery (as in taken from your garden) than what they actually put on meat.

Many (most?) supermarket brand bacon (and many other cured meats) are cured in celery juice. So I'm not so sure that's true.

I feel like this would be much more informative if they were more specific then.

It's fairly easy to avoid pink-salt. Hebrew National hot dogs don't have it. "Uncured" bacon doesn't have it.

Problem solved without much compromise (IMO all-beef, nitrate/nitrite free hot dogs taste much better Oscar Mayer or Ballpark anyways but I love my high(er) quality meat-in-tube-form). Does celery seed fall under this?

BTW, "traditionally" cured bacon tastes better than "uncured" IMO, but it's pretty much impossible to find IME outside of boutique butchers. The "uncured" stuff is pretty easy to find these days. A few years ago it was hit & miss but now even the Fiesta (a lower-income anglophied Supermercado) around the corner carries it. I guess there's just a lot of economic incentive to use the pink-salt shortcut.

"Nitrate-free" means cured with celery salt which is still a nitrate, just not a bad "chemical one".

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