@hawkeye10,
This is really OOOLLLDD News. Weve known this for 50 years.
I used to work in a market chain as a sausage maker (my really best was a smoked and doublke smoked kielbas
We would mix the meat according to the WURSTMEISTER'S recipes and mine was from my Ukraine Jadek.
SOdium Nitrite and nitrate salts re added in a curing mix called "Prague Curing Mix" It ws a mix of salt, Na nitrite nd nitrate. It added a flavor note, kept the meat from turning gray , and was a bacteriostat.
Id then smoke the kielbasi nd then take half, and rinse it in a molasses brine and then smoke it again. The double smoked was expensive and I made a fortune at this mix cause the market chain I worked for (it was near Trenton NJ where I was a grad student), would brek out the ad campaign for its special seasonal kielbasis for the various Christmases and Easters.
The Eatern European/Russian/ and German Catholics loved this baloney.
I would also make a kabernozy and a krakoska. All these were pink, smoky and loaded with Nitrates and nitrites.
The products went all to the dumper when the first Nitrate scare (around 1972) occured . I was on my way to being a "non sausage making guy" and hadda quit and take up academics.
I loved making sausage even with the cancer scares. We seem to ressurect this stuff every few years.
How many times has milkk ben on the dangerous substance list, or salt.??
Relax, enjoy a Slim Jim