LESSON 6
INSPECTION OF COOKED, CURED, AND/OR SMOKED PRODUCTS
Section I. CURING MEAT
6-1.
EARLY DEVELOPMENT
a. On a historical basis, meat curing may be defined as the addition of salt to
meat for the purpose of preservation. The origin of curing meats by salting is unknown
and may have begun quite by chance.
b. As the art progressed, additional substances were added to meat for curing
purposes. As a result, the term meat curing eventually came to be understood as the
addition of salt, saltpeter (nitrate), sugar, or in some instances, other ingredients for the
purpose of preserving and flavoring meat. Again, the manner in which the utility of
nitrate in meat curing first originated has been lost in antiquity, but is safe to assume
that its usefulness was discovered as the result of its being present as an impurity in the
crude sodium chloride employed.
c. Prior to the turn of the century, it was found that nitrite accumulated in meat
and meat-curing brine containing nitrate. Subsequent work indicated that the nitrite
resulted from bacterial reduction of nitrate, and that nitrite was responsible for the
production of the thermally stable meat pigment in cured meats. The use of nitrite in the
curing of meats was studied by Lewis and Vose (1926). As a result of these studies,
the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI), USDA, issued Circular Number 1370 on October
19, 1925, which reads as follows:
To Inspectors in Charge of Meat Inspection and
Proprietors and Operators of Official Establishments:
Under the Provisions of Amendment 4 to BAI Order
211 (Revised), sodium nitrite may be used for curing
meats.
Extended experiments have demonstrated that
successful curing may be accomplished by the addition of
as small a quantity as one-fourth of an ounce of sodium
nitrite to each 100 pounds of meat; therefore, pending
further ruling by the Bureau the finished product shall not
contain sodium nitrite in excess of 200 parts per million.
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6-2