The way sausage is made now is most certainly a modern invention, but nitrates and nitrites are not bad for you, nor toxic, in of itself as a family of chemical

The way sausage is made now is most certainly a modern invention, but nitrates and nitrites are not bad for you, nor toxic, in of itself as a family of chemicals. The problem in the modern industrial world is the use of artificial nitrates and nitrites present outside of plain sodium or potassium nitrite, which thankfully is starting to become more rare again. Also, there is no scientific link between nitrate consumption and cancer, only really awfully designed papers that somehow, and very unreasonably so, got published in journals.