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Comment by isthisthingon99 | Hacker News Reader

I'm not a pro. What are the ramifications on stuff I get in the grocery store? What is subject to nitrates?

Dried and cured meats. Sausages. Beef jerkies.

Not necessarily dried meats. The article specifically talks about cured meats. Dried meat is often just dehydrated. Jerky is a great example, it can be made with just salt, spice, and gentle heat. No curing involved.

Ofc there's the issue other commenters have pointed out: the FDA requires nitrates in a lot of meat products.

You can get all of these without nitrates. I am munching on grass-fed nitrate-free beef jerky sticks right now.

https://www.amazon.com/Whole30-Approved-Protein-Calories-Ori...

It says there that it contains "celery juice".

"Celery has a very high concentration of natural nitrate, and treating celery juice with a bacterial culture produces nitrite. The concentrated juice can then be used to produce “no nitrite added” processed meat."

https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/food/celery-juice-viable-a...

doesn't it just have nitrates from the celery?

The celery juice is added after cooking and the jerky is eaten cold. But yes, the celery juice will have nitrates -- the human body will naturally produce nitrites anyway -- the concerns are about heating the nitrites -- e.g. frying bacon.

Oh no... Beef jerky?!!!

I bought a basic dehydrator setup for my house just to avoid the sugar and nitrites in store beef jerky. Wayyyy cheaper too

Any links on how to do this you can recommend? I'm down.

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