I see more and more “uncured” charcuterie (sausage, ham, bacon, etc.) available in grocery stores these days. I can’t really taste the difference between uncured and cured (i.e. one that has been adulterated with sodium nitrite); OTOH, I’ve never had a side-by-side comparison, so what do I know?
Given that we refrigerate our ham/bacon/sausage these days, and that sodium nitrite is understood to be detrimental to health, why is it still used? Does it add a flavor that can’t be had any other way?
The “uncured” meats usually do contain nitrites and nitrates but in other forms.
Here’s Ruhlman’s take on the matter.
Curing also does not need to be done with nitrites and nitrates. You can just load your meat full of salt, but if you’re going the salt-only route, you need a lot more salt to safely cure something than going the salt + a smidge of nitrite/nitrate route.
Curing does impart its own flavor to meats see here for what levels cause a perceived change in flavor, and nitrites/nitrates are also responsible for preserving the pretty pink color of the dish. For example, I’ve made corned beef with and without nitrites. I’d say they were reasonably in the same ballpark of flavor , but the corned beef with nitrite is an appealing red color, while the ones without looks like what you’d expect a lump of beef sitting in a bucket of brine for three weeks to look like: an unattractive lump of gray meat. But they both tasted like “corned beef,” although different enough that I would think a blind taste test would make them easily distinguishable.
Also, the “uncured” stuff with celery powder may have more nitrites than the cured stuff:
I have found several sources that say this, although I haven’t found one that actually tested products for nitrite/nitrate content.
I’ll add that the amount of sodium nitrite is absolutely tiny.
A basic dry cure mixture is 450 grams (1 lb) salt, 225 grams (8 oz) sugar, and 50 grams (2 oz) “pink salt”, which is a mixture of 94% salt and 6% sodium nitrite.
So in a full 26 oz of dry cure mixture, we’re talking about 3 grams of sodium nitrite.
When you consider that the procedure for using this dry cure is to basically roll the chunk of meat around in it and whatever sticks is what cures the meat, that amount of cure is a pretty large amount- probably enough for several corned beef briskets easily.
I suspect that the natural defensive compounds from plants, and compounds formed as part of cooking are a bigger health threat (if they are at all) than the tiny amount of nitrite in cured goods.