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.
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.
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.
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
Here is the link on J.B. Pritzker
The Tree of Life 