And in addition to telling me what exercises to do, she's tweaking my diet to make my workouts more effective. So she had me start a food diary. (You can all see where this is going...) And when she saw bratwurst for breakfast she said "oh no, we've got to change that, nitrates are bad for you."
"But lots of vegetables have more nitrates per pound than my bratwurst. And you can cure meats with celery powder."
"Oh, organic uncured sausage is fine, it's just sodium nitrate that causes stomach cancer. You make your own bratwurst?"
"Yeah, home made so I know what's in them."
"Okay. But we still need to add more vegetables to your diet..."
So I never lied, because I didn't say I used celery powder, just that you CAN cure meat with celery powder.
So I went looking for more details on that. And it turns out to be all semantics, they don't call meat treated with celery powder cured, even though it causes the same preservative reactions. They consider the celery powder a flavorant. That's like saying I brush my teeth with toothpaste, but not because it cleans my teeth, but because it cleans my toothbrush while I use it... sure....I was actually contemplating trying to cure with celery powder. Until I realized that it's exactly the same thing except a lot less predictable as far as concentration. After reading the Marianski books on how most of the food additives are derived from things you could already eat (guar gum and things like that that sound icky) I'm just fine with taking the tried and true route. Plus, I don't plan on eating 90% of my body weight in cured meats everyday so I doubt it will be the nitrates that do me in...
(Although Robert's Maple Bacon does make it difficult to stick to a reasonable serving size 
)
