Note: Nitrite/nitrates are essential to healthy living and yet quite possibly the greatest misunderstood element by human beings. In fact the EPA considers nitrate a toxic pollutant yet neither human nor plant life will survive without them. How many people do you know that may be avoiding them in certain foodstuffs yet recent research suggests that we may be deficient in nitrite levels. For more background information on the importance of dietary nitrite/nitrate link HERE to read Trent Loos's piece printed May 11, 2011 in the High Plains Journal.

• Dr. Kenneth Tate, Endowed Chair in Rangeland Watershed Sciences, is from the University of California, Davis. I told him what I believe about nitrates and he did not disagree. In fact, he went on to say that "we are finding that 85 percent of the samples tested are below the detection limit for nitrate with very good scientific methods."

• In a study published in Breastfeeding Medicine, the official journal of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine, researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston reported the results of an observational study showing that the levels of nitrite and nitrate in breast milk change during the initial days after birth. The scientists argue that this is to accommodate the changing physiologic requirements of developing babies.
I thought I might share with you some of the nitrate levels in terms of their availability in your favorite foods. Breast milk contains 1,900 mg/l; vegetable juice has a whopping 5,000 mg/l; bacon ranges from 10 to 100 mg/l and everyone's favorite nitrate source, kale, has 19,500 mg/l.

• Actually, less than five percent of daily nitrite intake comes from cured meats. Nearly 93 percent of nitrite comes from leafy vegetables & tubers and our own saliva. Vegetables contain nitrate, which is converted to nitrite when it comes into contact with saliva in the mouth.

• In fact, the amount of nitrate in some vegetables can be very high. Spinach, for example, may contain 500 to 1900 parts per million of nitrate; radishes may contain 1500 to 1800 parts per million and lettuce may contain 600 to 1700 parts per million. The nitrate to nitrite conversion process from eating vegetables makes up 85 percent of the average human dietary nitrite intake.

American Meat Institute Sodium Nitrite Fact Sheet