Cure 2 Question

[Jonty]

I'm trying to get a better understanding of the use of nitrates/nitrites when curing and would be grateful of any help anyone can offer. Does the cure 2 dissapate or change it's composition over time or are the levels (i.e 10g of cure per 10lb meat) safe for consumption from day 1 of adding it to the sausage mix. I am obviouysly aware that you wouldn't eat a salami until it was properly dried, but where a recipe suggests that the salami should take say 8 weeks to cure, would it be potentially harmful to eat it if it appeared to be dried atfter only 6 weeks.

Thanks

Jonty

[sausagemaker]

Hi Jonty

In short yes the you could eat the meat from day one although if you are not going to allow it to cure then these is no real point to using it.
The cure starts to dissipate as soon as it is released to the air & starts turning to nitrite through bacterial action on the meat.
As for safety please see the statement below from FDA on toxicity, as you will see it's the salt you need to worry about.

"To obtain 22 milligrams of sodium nitrite per kilogram of body weight (a lethal dose), a 154-pound adult would have to consume, at once, 18.57 pounds of cured meat product containing 200 ppm sodium nitrite (because nitrite is rapidly converted to nitric oxide during the curing process, the 18.57 pound figure should be tripled at least). Even if a person could eat that amount of cured meat, salt, not nitrite, probably would be the toxic factor."

Hope this helps

regards
sausagemaker

[Jonty]

Thank you