Sodium nitrite (E250) – the poison in your food and how to remedy it.

By Baldmichael Theresoluteprotector’sson

19th November, 2022


I dare say the majority of people are not aware of this problem and how toxic this chemical is. I would not have been aware myself if I had not suffered my facial palsy as a consequence of bacon being treated by it.

It is legally allowed in processed meats within certain limits in the UK, but this was not always the case. Before the Second World War it was banned, but when we could not get bacon from Denmark after the Germans invaded in 1940, we had to import from the USA who did allow sodium nitrite.

At the war’s end we did not go back to the original situation.

There is a very good book by Guillaume Coudray, ‘Who Poisoned Your Bacon Sandwich?’: The Dangerous History of Meat Additives. I have a copy. It is detailed and extremely thorough. But as it takes time to read through, I hope my post will summarise the issues as concisely as possible.

The Wikipedia entry on sodium nitrite is good.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_nitrite

The main issue is neuro-toxicity, sodium nitrite affects the nervous system. So much so that even a teaspoonful can kill you. Appalling as this sounds, it is even promoted as a way of committing suicide by at least one website I found whilst gathering information on the matter.

It was in September 2020 that I worked out what was going on with my own body. I looked up sodium nitrite and found that it is used industrially to prevent corrosion. Sodium nitrite is an effective corrosion inhibitor according to the Wikipedia link.

This link says this too.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-87858-9

However it also says Sodium nitrite is nontoxic and ecofriendly compound used as a food preservative. That is a load of bollux, completely false. How they arrived at this conclusion I don’t know.

As a building surveyor and understanding electrolytic action, I realised that sodium nitrite must block the electrical current which causes the corrosion effect.

Therefore it follows logically that in one’s body it will block your nerve impulses, and if in sufficient quantity will paralyse you. This could ultimately lead to organ failure and death.

However, that is not the end of the story. The problem is that that sodium nitrite bonds with amino acids to form highly neuro-toxic nitro-samines.

Compared to the chemical formula of sodium nitrite, NaNO2, nitro-samines are much longer chains and therefore will get ‘stuck’ in your body as it were.

One of the main reasons that nitro-samines form is high temperature, such as frying. I am not aware that detailed testing has identified where nitro-samines end up in bacon for example, but I suspect that this is more in the fat and rind.

This is because I ended up with the palsy which my wife did not. We both ate the bacon, typically once a week during the winter, but she was not eating the fat and rind and I was.

Only when I realised what was going on (after about 10 years) did I check the pack of opened bacon we had and noted the ingredients included E250, sodium nitrite.

Interestingly, sodium nitrite is an antidote to cyanide poisoning. I have not seen the chemical reaction formula, but this is a case of two poisons cancelling each other out. This is rather like two negatives or noes, making a positive or yes. For example, a double negative in English actually means a positive.

Antidotes to sodium nitrite poisoning

Ascorbic acid or vitamin C is a key antidote but note this.

Having seen the information regarding sodium nitrite as an antidote to cyanide, I considered that the reverse should be true; cyanide could be used as an antidote to sodium nitrite.

I knew that very small amounts of cyanide are contained in seeds and nuts. The proportion can vary, but apple pips (the white middle bit which is edible) and brazil nuts contain it.

Almonds too, although there are sweet and bitter almonds. The latter are highly toxic and not suitable for eating.

My supposition was confirmed by a very good book by Philip Day ‘Cancer Why We’re Still Dying To Know The Truth’.

He refers to Laetrile (amygdalin or vitamin B17) as a cure for cancer. It was now obvious to me why as I explain above, it is neutralising the toxins in the body.

Of course in the USA Laetrile it is banned as people might be cured of cancer and that would not suit the pharmaceutical companies or the medical profession as they would lose money or be out of a job.

Cancer Research UK give fair warnings about its use, but will not warn you about the fact that I now know, because of my own misdiagnosis of cancer, that they ignore or gross misunderstand the toxicity of supposedly cancer treating drugs and therapies. 

https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/cancer-in-general/treatment/complementary-alternative-therapies/individual-therapies/laetrile

Or if you wish to put it another way, I have cancer but it is toxic poisoning as I consider most cancers are. But this is not a post on cancer which will have to wait for another time.

But please note sodium nitrite’s toxic effects have been known for over 100 years and the issue of nitro-samines for at least about 40 years if not more.

Yet it is still allowed in processed meat!!! No wonder people are ill, their food is poisoned.

Nitrosamines and molybdenum

To start with please note it is 42 atomic weight on the chemistry periodic table!!!

Perhaps it is not the answer to the ultimate question as per Hitch Hikers Guide, but I found this.

https://www.backtonaturalhealth.com/blog/the-one-mineral-you-need-to-break-down-carcinogenic-nitrosamines

Please note that molybdenum is toxic but an essential trace element. When my wife and I stayed at a bed & breakfast in Worcestershire, the lady who ran the establishment said the nearby hill was known for molybdenum in the soil. If cattle were left on it for too long they would die from the poisonous effects.

https://www.rsc.org/periodic-table/element/42/molybdenum

Foods containing sodium nitrite added as a preservative/colour maintainer.

These include:

  • Bacon
  • Gammon
  • Hams
  • Salamis
  • Sausages
  • Pâtés
  • Smoked fish

Consider all preserved/processed meats suspect until you have double checked carefully.

Not all products will contain it, but sadly price is no guarantee. Even organic meat may contain it. For example, the Goodwood Farm Shop near Chichester sells its own organically reared meat including pork.

My wife bought a gammon for cooking to take on holiday this year, not realising that it had sodium nitrite in it. We ate it all week and we were very tired and some symptoms of the ‘flu.

I became suspicious of the gammon despite its organic credentials.

When we got home and eventually went to the shop again I checked. It had E250 on the ingredients label.

I checked with the staff. It was organic meat that the farm raised itself, but it sends off the meat to be processed and comes back with the wretched chemical in it. They even sell delicatessen type meats, probably not their own, containing sodium nitrite.

Nitrates and their issues.

Whilst sodium nitrite seems to be much more common in food, nitrates are still used and are still a problem. Sodium nitrate (E251) is going to be very similar although potassium nitrate (E252) may be somewhat less toxic.

Nevertheless, please note this.

In processed meats, potassium nitrate reacts with hemoglobin and myoglobin generating a red color.

If this is the case then nitro-samines will again be an issue.

And this

In Bank Shot, El (Joanna Cassidy) propositions Walter Ballantine (George C. Scott), who tells her that he has been fed saltpeter in prison. “You know why they feed you saltpeter in prison?” Ballantine asks her. She shakes her head no. They kiss. He glances down at his crotch, making a gesture that reveals his body has not responded to her advances, and says, “That’s why they feed you saltpeter in prison.”

If it causes impotence then it is neuro-toxic and one would expect this from the chemistry.

Extracts from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_nitrate

Saltpetre/saltpeter in processed meats

Saltpetre or saltpetre is another name for potassium nitrate. Do not be deceived, those would produce a dodgy product have no morals and do anything for money.

Vegetables and fruit contain nitrites and nitrates

This is true and used as an argument for the supposed safety of the chemicals in meat. It blatantly ignores the nitro-samine issues discussed.

Vegetables and fruit contain other vitamins and elements, probably, most noticeably vitamin C which acts as an anti-oxidant to counter the neuro-toxic effects of the nitrites/nitrates.

This article is good but it says

Therefore, the risks associated with the use of nitrate and nitrite in cured fish and meat products seem to be very small, whereas the benefits are large.

Note weasel words of ‘seem to be’. Ok, if you take suitable levels of anti-oxidant at the same time you may well be ok, but ultimately one does not need this poison for curing.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/sodium-nitrite

Traditional treatment for curing meats

Salt (not containing nitrite or nitrate), air and time for a dry cure.

You can wet cure meat and I have done so with some organic pork. A brine, salt and water is essentially all that is needed, but I added fruit and powdered vitamin C, ascorbic acid which is an antioxidant. I used refined vitamin C but I understand with bioflavonoids is much better (and tastes better).

The fruit gave colour and the vitamin C should have countered any nitrogen compounds in the meat which might have caused my wife and I problems.

As far as I was aware we had no issues in eating it, although I cannot test meat for nitro-samines etc. much as I might like to!

The EU and the lobbyists

The EU has been subverted by lobbyists for the nitro-meat industry. According to Guillaume Coudray this principally goes back to the USA and the American Meat Packers Association, now the American Meat Institute. See heading below. This will always be a problem of big government, easily subverted by bribery and corruption and the placing of those supporting the industry in the bureaucracy.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1397661/EU-news-food-standards-cancer-claim-book-Guillaume-Coudray-EU-documents

You can see we have an opportunity to reverse the current situation, but it will require all good men and women to make a stand.

American Meat Institute

Founded in 1906 in Chicago as the American Meat Packers Association

From

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Meat_Institute

Chicago is in Illinois. You can be ill in Illinois and the world over!  No wonder there is a problem given Chicago’s corruption history. This includes up to the present day with porky J.B. Pritzker, governor of Illinois. See my link on this man at the end.

While I am at it, anyone remember the scene from Naked Gun with Leslie Nielsen?

Leslie Nielsen as police officer Frank Drebin goes to a meat processing factory where he is shot at. The man who fired at him falls into a vat of deadly toxic chemicals and then into the meat processing machine. Later on his finger is bitten into being in a hot dog eaten by the villain of the film.

Deadly toxic chemicals are what some meat processors use. We should get very angry about this and bring these monsters to justice.

Action

If you wish to eat meat, buy quality and check the ingredients carefully. There are manufacturers who are sensible, albeit probably limited in numbers at present. Here’s one in the USA. It looks as though it is organic and nitrite/nitrate free.

And if you understand all I have said, please take this up with food processors, shops and government health standards authorities. We should not have to put up with poisoned food, it is not necessary. Boycott shops if they won’t respond and let them know why.

Final observations and summary

Anyway, there you have it. Sodium nitrite is poisonous. It is quite unnecessary for it to be used in food as a preservative or to help maintain meats pinky colour. Anybody who tells you otherwise is a liar and a fraud.

All that is required for meat preservation is a good quality salt free from nitrites or indeed nitrates. It can be air dried or wet cured. Colour may be added by using natural colours such as from fruit.

Yes, it will take longer certainly if air dried and likely cost more, but what price is your health? It will cost you more in the long term if you cannot work.

If you are vegetarian you won’t need to be concerned about such issues (there are other issues of GM crops, neuro-toxic pesticides etc.), but eating meat in moderation is fine if it is not poisoned and has been reared and slaughtered correctly.

If you should need to detoxify, then using nutrition, seeds and nuts, is a great way to do it with a great deal of control of the amounts you will ingest.

Using a supplement is fine if you can get it but you will need caution so as not to overdose. But that is true of many things one can eat.

Finally, I note that nitrous oxide, formula N2O, is toxic. This typically comes from petrol/diesel vehicle emissions. You can research. This could be written NNO.

Nitrite is toxic in meat, formula NO2. This could be written NOO

Nitrate is toxic in meat, formula NO3. This could be written NOOO.

So avoid these three toxins, these poisons.

So that’s a N..NO, NOO, NOOO!!! 

P.S. As regards detoxifying from sodium nitrite and nitro-samines I have given some indications in the post above. I shall write more about my health issues but people are welcome to ask me in advance of any post if this will help.

I have started anagraming sodium nitrite and its constituent elements. It is very revealing. I will do another post on this in due course.

This post on cancer may be useful

World Cancer Day

Here is the link on J.B. Pritzker

Author: alphaandomega21

Baldmichael Theresoluteprotector'sson. When not posting pages or paging posties, trying to be a good husband, and getting over a long term health issue, I am putting the world to rights. I have nothing better to do, so why not? But of course that includes dancing, being funny (in more than one sense), poking fun at life, poking fun at myself, deflating the pompous, reflating the sad. Seeking to heal the whole of the soul (and body where possible). In short making life as good as it possibly can be for others as well as myself. You can't say fairer than that. But if you can, please say. People need to know.

14 thoughts on “Sodium nitrite (E250) – the poison in your food and how to remedy it.”

  1. Good timing, today I am making up some chorizo and eggs with an all natural chorizo. Haven’t eaten nitrate meat in years, seems most of the bacon makers at my local stores have removed it. So much of our chemical problems come from trying to make food last longer than it ‘should’. Get to know your local farmers and avoid lots of problems. I have found a small rancher for beef but not for pork yet.

    Liked by 2 people

  2. As I recall the chemistry I learned at school, nitrogen tends to be found oxidised in the atmosphere as a gas (NO2N2O4) in which it is in the +4th oxidation state, which dissolves in water to produce equal quantities of anions in which it is in odd oxidation states, nitrite (NO2-,+3) and nitrate (NO3-,+5), a process called disproportionation. I think SO2 (+4) similarly disproportionates in water, giving sulphate SO4– (+6) and sulphide S– (S–,+2), as well as the sulphite (SO3–,+4) one might expect.

    I’d no idea that these anions were at all toxic until I read your enlightening post. I’d wrongly assumed the toxicity of certain salts came from the metals (cations) in them, not the anions made from ubiquitous light elements found all over the human body and in our food and the air we breathe. (That is, apart from cyanide, CN-, of course.) I’ve learned something new from you. Thanks.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Thank you so much John, I really appreciate a chemical breakdown which I was rather lacking.

      If I may, the funny thing is that the sulphites/sulphates should not so be so bad. This is because they are SO -SO if you understand me, not SO bad!!

      It is all in the words and in the beginning was the Word…

      Liked by 1 person

  3. How very interesting. And yes, leave it to the good ole US to allow them to poison us with meat. They are going to kill us one way or another, and have been at it for a very long time. I have often wondered out loud to people, just how healthy would we all be if we weren’t poisoned all day, every day, from the first day we are alive? My God, we would probably be intelligent, healthy, super-humans.
    Thanks for the input!

    Liked by 2 people

  4. During my life I’ve lived in poverty and also with an abundance of finances. Because of this fact I’ve had an opportunity to witness the difference money can make on a person’s health when it come to the diet. Poor people are definitely forced to eat more poison than middle-class and upper-class and it shows.

    Liked by 1 person

  5. Since CONVID I have found so many enlightened people – thank you to you for being one of them – I wish I had more time to read even more – been worried about all the additives in the world from a young age – a 17 year old (many years ago) starting out as a Pharmacy Technician when there were wise Pharmacists who understood chemistry and were not taught by pharmaceutical-company-funded universities. We need more free-thinkers but CONVID has made me realise that there are, in fact, many thousands out there that think the same – we just need to unite!!
    Some people will never see the light but there are plenty who will and already do.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. A good question, and one I had not looked at closely. Nitrites and nitrates can be found generally in vegetables and there are many websites which discuss this.

      Celery salt is a mixture of celery seed and table salt typically.

      https://foodsfact.org/celery-seed-vs-celery-salt/

      The problem is that the processing may introduce other chemicals, and certainly table salt is problematic as opposed to sea salt which shouldn’t be.

      Celery salt may well contain table salt and so is likely to be a problem, but how much depends on one’s diet as a whole. The issue as I see it is this nitrogen ion which has a cell cutting effect which has uses in the body up to a point.

      It can be neutralized by anti-oxidants such as vitamin C usually present to a degree in fruits and vegetables to balance any toxic effects of other elements/compounds.

      This talks about table salt although I haven’t analysed in great detail. But I note reference to Himalayan salt and again I am wary of this salt. I found another link on that.

      https://thealternativedaily.com/reasons-to-stop-using-table-salt/

      https://butternutrition.com/pink-himalayan-salt/

      In general the more processed the greater the possible issues. But it is the binding to amino acids that causes the huge increase in neuro-toxicity.

      Like

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