1.

A.
Salting has been used to preserve the aesthetic and healthful qualities of meat
and fish in most civilizations for more than 3,000 years. In their review of curing
practices, Binkerd and Kolari (1975) speculated that curing with salt was first
practiced in saline desert or coastal regions, e.g. , near the Dead Sea. They noted
that desert salt contains nitrate as an impurity and that saltpeter, or nitre
(potassium nitrate), or "wall saltpeter" (calcium nitrate) from cave walls were
used by ancient people for their preservative quality. The earliest specific
mention of the characteristic pink color of cured meat did not appear until late
Roman literature (Binkerd and Kolari, 1975). References to the flavor conferred by
saltpeter as part of the curing mixture were made as early as 1835 (Binkerd and
Kolari, 1975), but it was not until much later that this effect was scientifically
investigated (Brooks et al., 1940). By the late 1800s, saltpeter was specifically
recommended as an ingredient in curing recipes to promote the development of
"cured color." For example, Edward Smith in 1873 observed that "Meat, when
prepared by salt alone, loses its colour, but when saltpetre is added the flesh be
comes a reddish color throughout, provided the action be sufficiently prolonged."
Failures to achieve consistent results in curing, particularly in the attainment of
safety of cured products, were well documented by Kerner in Germany (1817,
1820, 1822). He studied many outbreaks of often-fatal "sausage poisonings" or
"botulism" (a term derived from the Latin "botulus" for sausage) and identified
the omission of nitrate from the salt mixture used to cure incriminated sausage
as a common feature of the outbreaks. Van Ermengen (1897) demonstrated that
the cause of botulism was a neurotoxin produced in the food by a bacterium. He
identified this microorganism as an anaerobic spore forming bacillus, which he
named Bacillis botulinus. It is now known as Clostridium botulinum. The first
recorded case of botulism in the United States occurred in 1899
During the second half of the 19th century, various investigators were implicating
microorganisms in the putrefaction of foods and in the causation of some
 diseases (Brock, 1961). Despite this and the fact that curing was effective in
preventing putrefaction and health hazards, it was not until many decades after
Kerner' s and Van Ermengen's observations that the specific antimicrobial contri
bution of the various ingredients in curing mixtures was investigated.

B.
The first significant scientific investigations of curing began in the late 19th
century. Polenske (1891) reported the presence of nitrite in cured meat and in
pickling solutions used for curing. He attributed this to the reduction of nitrate to
nitrite by bacterial action.
Lehmann (1899) and Kisskalt (1899) independently reported that nitrite rather than
nitrate conferred the typical color to cured products. Subsequently, Haldane (1901),
on the basis of experiments with blood and hemoglobin, proposed that the reaction
of hemoglobin with nitric oxide derived from nitrite was the chemical basis for the
cured meat color. This reaction mechanism was confirmed in uncooked cured meats
and sausages by Hoagland (1910).
The specific contribution of nitrite (and indirectly nitrate) to the antimicrobial
effects of the curing salt mixture was not recognized until the late 1920s. Kerr et al.
(1926) stated that neither nitrate nor nitrite had any preservative value, but 2 years
later Lewis and Moran (1928) suggested that nitrite had antimicrobial effects. This
was later confirmed by other investigators
A review by Tanner (1944) indicates some of the uncertainties at that time
regarding the antimicrobial actions of nitrite and the magnitude of its role in the
inhibition of C. botulinum in cured meats. Steinke and Foster (1951) appear to have
been the first investigators to provide definitive evidence of sodium nitrite's
antibotulinal efficacy in a meat product when it is added at the levels commonly used
by commercial producers today.
In the two subsequent decades, many reports on the antibotulinal activity of
nitrite were published, and it became generally accepted that nitrite exerted such
activity in most cured products (Foster and Duncan, 1974; Sofos et al . , 1979).
However, definitive evidence of the relative contribution of nitrite in controlling
botulinum in various foods has only been obtained for certain products during the
last decade (Christiansen et al. , 1973, 1974, 1975; Hustad et al. , 1973).
NO3- 1950
N-N-nitrosamines DNA

1994
Jon LundbergNigel
Benjamin NO

NO2

Ferric Fang

( 2004 10 )
Estimates of Lifetime Risk of Cancer for Various Population Groups Based on
Exogenous and In-Vivo Exposure to Nitrosamines. Numbers in Parenthesis Indicate
Reduced Exposure if All Nitrite were Removed from Cured Meats
 The Possible Effect of Eliminating Nitrite from Cured Meats. The row under the
lifetime risk in Table provides rough estimates of reduced risk of cancer if nitrite were
removed from cured meats. These estimates were derived from speculative
calculations based on reduced exposures to nitrosamines that might be expected if
all nitrite were removed from cured meats. If 130 million people are assumed to fall
into Group 1, as before, the reduced number of deaths per year from cancer due to
exposure to nitrosamines would be:
130106 4.9105
= 91
70
Therefore, for Group 1, the reduction of deaths per year due to removal of
nitrite from cured meats would be approximately:
104 91 = 13
Likewise, if we assume that another 50 million people belong to Group 2
(average diet and smoker), removal of nitrite would lead to a reduction of
approximately 7.1 deaths per year due to tumors induced by exposure to
nitrosamines:
(50106 )
(3.6 3.5)104 = 7.1
70
Assuming that another 20 million people belong to the high cured meat diet
group (Group 3), 10 million to the high risk group (Group 6), and 10 million to the low
risk group (Group 7), then the following reduction in deaths per year due to cancer
from exposure to nitrosamines would result from the removal of nitrite from cured
meats.
 Adding the numbers of deaths estimated for Groups 1, 2, 3, 6, and 7 indicates
that elimination of nitrite from cured meats would result in a reduction of
approximately 43 deaths per year from cancer if all cancers lead to death in the
general mixed population of 130 million nonsmokers eating an average diet, 50
million smokers eating the same diet, 20 million eating a high cured meat diet, 10
million high risk individuals who are exposed occupational ly as well as from other
sources, and 10 million low risk individuals.

2.

()
4 / 3 / 5
/ 10 /

86%

(PH)

0.3~0.5

1.
2.
20 2 4
7 8 9
3.
 (
)

4.

5.

3.

A.
1. 1 3
2 .

3.

4.
(1) 3~5ml
(2)
(3) 15

B.()

4.

A.

B.()

DNA
5.

A.
:

1. :


2. :
3. ():
1 2mg

4. :

5. : C

B
1. :

2. :

6.

I 106 g 1000 mL
II 220 g 30 mL 1000 mL
50 g 500 mL
1000 mL
I 2 g 800 mL
100 mL 1000 mL
II 0.25 g 250 mL

III 445 mL 400 mL 1000 mL

100 30 15 mg

100 mL(NO2) 100 mg/mL

0.053.0 mg/mL
() 20 mL
100 mL 40 mL I 10 mL III 6 mL
5 II 2 mL 15
540 nm

10 g

5 mL 80 100 mL 15

I II 2 mL
200 mL 30

20 mL 100 mL
540 nm 20
mL 100 mL 40 mL III 6 mL
540 nm

(g/kg) =1000
C(g/mL)
V(mL)
M(g)

6.
The Health Effects of Nitrate, Nitrite and N-Nitroso Compounds. National
Academies press.
2004 10