Danger from sausages and salami

Nitrites in sausages and salami are food preservatives that can cause anemia, cancer, and even death in consumers. So how can we avoid them?

Currently, on the market there are many popular foods such as meat, fish, cheese, soft drinks... containing dangerous preservatives. These are nitrate compounds such as saltpeter (potassium nitrate KNO3), potassium nitrite (KNO2), sodium nitrate (NaNO3), sodium nitrite (NaNO2) used to keep fresh, preserve color, create attractive colors and prevent bacteria from growing. However, these preservatives themselves can easily lead to food poisoning and cause dangerous diseases.

Nitrite causes anemia and cancer

Nitrate salts, when entering the human body, participate in oxidation-reduction reactions in the stomach and intestines under the action of digestive enzymes, producing very toxic nitrite. Nitrite has the effect of oxidizing hemoglobin of red blood cells, turning hemoglobin into methemoglobin which no longer has respiratory function.

Adults have nitrate reductase, so it is difficult to activate the process of decomposing nitrate into nitrite. But children - due to the high pH of their digestive system - have not yet formed this reductase. Therefore, children under 12 months old, especially under 6 months old, if they use water or vegetables with high nitrate content, are susceptible to poisoning, called "blue baby" syndrome.

Children with this disease are often pale and weak, easily life-threatening. Children often have difficulty breathing and suffocation. If the infection is severe, the body lacks oxygen in the blood, causing dizziness and fainting while playing. Severe poisoning can easily lead to death if not treated promptly.

NO2- also reacts with amines to form nitrosamine-1, a pre-cancerous compound. High levels of nitrosamines cannot be eliminated by the body in time, and accumulate over time in the liver, causing poisoning and liver cancer.

Green vegetables, sausages, lap xuong... contain a lot of nitrite.

Due to their soluble and soluble nature, nitrites and nitrates easily remain in the soil and water environment and are then absorbed into vegetables from the use of fertilizers and pollution by livestock manure.

Vegetables and fruit trees that are fertilized with a lot of chemical fertilizers or grown in areas with polluted soil and water often contain a lot of nitrite.

Pickled vegetables also often contain a lot of nitrite. When not pickled, the content of this substance in vegetables is relatively low, but when pickled in the first few days, the nitrite content increases due to the microbial process of reducing nitrate to nitrite.

However, this substance will gradually decrease and disappear when the melon has a sour taste and a nice yellow color. But if the melon is left for too long until it becomes rancid, the nitrite content will increase. Therefore, we should not eat newly pickled melons and rotten melons to avoid nitrite poisoning.

Processed foods such as sausages, Chinese sausages, fermented pork rolls, smoked meat, frozen meat and fish, etc. all contain many preservatives which are nitrite compounds, so there is a high risk of poisoning from this substance.

So if you like to eat these dishes, be careful, only use them reasonably to ensure health safety. If you want to eat them, you should choose to buy products from reputable and quality food companies, because they will use preservatives at an acceptable level, less toxic.

Should eat boiled food

Nitrite and nitrate can easily cause poisoning and have negative effects on health. Therefore, we need to process food to minimize this toxic preservative. You should wash food thoroughly with clean water, then soak it in clean water. To remove NO2- ions, you should boil food. Boiling in water will help remove most of the nitrite in food. On the contrary, if you fry or grill food, the ability to remove nitrite is lower than boiling.

For vegetables and tubers, they should be used fresh and as soon as possible, because if vegetables are left for a few days, the amount of nitrate will increase. Tubers with high nitrate content should be peeled, sliced, and soaked in water for 15 minutes or more before processing. As for foods containing nitrate salt (salt pepper), it is best to use them sparingly.

According to Zing