Baseline sodium nitrate and nitrite concentrations in fresh and processed meats

Curing salts composed of sodium/potassium nitrate and nitrite mixtures are widely used preservatives in processed meats. Despite many desirable technological effects, their use in meat products has been linked to methemoglobinemia and the formation of nitrosamines. Therefore, an increasing "anti-nitrite feeling" has grown among meat consumers, who search for clean label products. Several analytical results have showed low concentrations of sodium nitrate in meat products whose labels do not mention curing salts. Such results may be interpreted as non-compliance according to current Brazilian regulation. In this work, 120 samples of fresh meats and preservative-free labeled processed meats were analyzed in order to assess the natural presence of nitrate and nitrite salts and to estimate their baseline concentrations. Concentrations of sodium nitrate, ranging from 7.8 to 25.2 mg kg(-1) and from 8.7 to 32.3 mg kg(-1) were quantitated by capillary zone electrophoresis in some samples of fresh pork and meat products, respectively. Sodium nitrite was not quantitated in any product. Thus, positive analytical results for nitrate in these kinds of samples should be interpreted with caution, because of the risk of them being mistakenly characterized as non-compliant results.