"Uncured" products

In recent years, a natural and organic movement has taken place. More and more consumers are demanding natural, organic products with minimal processing. I, for one, think this is a crock. However, as long as there are consumer's willing to pay the premium, then it would be foolish not fill the demand. HOWEVER, some processors are being very misleading to consumers.

Several companies, including Hormel and other big names, have come out with new "uncured" lines of products such as bacon and ham. This of course, makes the consumer feel as if they are getting a more natural minimal processed product. And to perpetuate this feeling, they package the product in "natural" un-dyed packaging. These products, are in fact cured though.

In order to understand this, you need to understand the curing process and it's effects. Curing is used to produce a distinctive flavor, color, and for food safety reasons. When items are cured they are typically injected with a mixture of sodium nitrite (this is the cure reactant), sodium erythorbate (this is essentially an accelerator for the sodium nitrite), and flavorings in a water solution. it is important to note, however that if it is a dry-cured product sodium nitrate is used instead of nitrite; furthermore, injection is not the only method of getting this mixture into the meat, simply one of the most common. The product is then typically smoked which activates the sodium nitrite and the cure process. After the product is smoked to an extent that it reaches an internal temperature capable of killing any and all bacteria (for hams this is 145 degrees F), it is removed from the smoker. The nitrite from the cure will have binded to the color receptors and this causes the pink color. The product will then have a distinctive cured flavor, and will be more shelf stable, thanks to both the cooking and the nitrite added to the product.

Listen carefully, this is very important: There is NO way to acheive the distinctive cured pink color without adding nitrite!

Now, you may wonder, how then, can these companies label their products, which clearly have this pink color as "Uncured". My friends, it is called a loophole. Like so many before them, these unsrupulous people have found a loophole in the law. Instead of adding sodium nitrite straight, they instead add celery salt, which contains nitrite in it. Since they can put celery salt on the label instead of sodium nitrite the law allows them to call these products uncured, when in fact they are cured. Furthermore, there are often much higher levels of nitrite in this salt than what processors add to their products.

What about those people which say to me (and there have been many): "But Rudi, I eat this meat and I no longer get nitrite headaches!" My response to them: "It's all in your head." (No pun intended). Anything that contains nitrite has the ability to give people sensitive to it headaches, both sodium nitrite AND celery salt. So if you mysteriously stopped getting these headaches, it is because you THOUGHT there was no nitrite in the product, and therefore fooled yourself.

So now, dear readers, you know the truth about uncured products. I hope you no longer waste your money on these products. But, if, even after reading this and discovering they are exactly like all other cured meats, you still want to throw away the money (for, these products come with a much heftier price tag then traditional cured products) on this, then at least you are now doing so knowledgeably.