3 ms·

I find the packaging that claims to have no added nitrates/nitrites to be so dishonest. The worst was one that said something like "no nitrates/nitrites added,

I find the packaging that claims to have no added nitrates/nitrites to be so dishonest. The worst was one that said something like "no nitrates/nitrites added, only naturally-occurring". That made it sound like the only nitrates/nitrites are those that naturally occur in pork (is there any? I don't know!). But then when you look at the ingredients, there was some purified sea salt ingredient, which was where the stuff was coming from. It's not "naturally-occurring" if you have to distill it out of sea salt or celery juice. I prefer the labels that just say "bacon" and don't claim to be preservative-free. If there is not any demonstrated (or even hypothetical) benefit to nitrates/nitrites being added from different sources ("natural" or otherwise), it should be considered deceptive advertising to make it seem like there is a difference (or that your product has none).

NikolaNovak 3y ago
Is that like the obsession over different sources of sugar? Many people in my circle treat cane sugar as if it had magical properties of not being sugar at all :-/
- gnicholas 3y ago
  I think it's different. I think most people don't even realize it's in there. They just see "celery juice" or "sea salt extracts" and figure it's for flavor.
- nimos 3y ago
  The worst is salt because iodine deficiency actually isn't that rare and is increasing.... The cheapest generic salts tend to have added iodine but most of the "fancy" stuff doesn't.
mrguyorama 3y ago
> It's not "naturally-occurring" if you have to distill it out of sea salt or celery juice. Blame the US gov, they are the ones that decided using celery salt as your source of nitrates meant you "didn't add any nitrates". Maybe if our government was functional enough to not regularly shutdown from inaction, we would have an easier time improving and updating food labeling requirements.

NikolaNovak 3y ago

Is that like the obsession over different sources of sugar? Many people in my circle treat cane sugar as if it had magical properties of not being sugar at all :-/

gnicholas 3y ago
I think it's different. I think most people don't even realize it's in there. They just see "celery juice" or "sea salt extracts" and figure it's for flavor.
nimos 3y ago
The worst is salt because iodine deficiency actually isn't that rare and is increasing.... The cheapest generic salts tend to have added iodine but most of the "fancy" stuff doesn't.

mrguyorama 3y ago

> It's not "naturally-occurring" if you have to distill it out of sea salt or celery juice. Blame the US gov, they are the ones that decided using celery salt as your source of nitrates meant you "didn't add any nitrates". Maybe if our government was functional enough to not regularly shutdown from inaction, we would have an easier time improving and updating food labeling requirements.