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Meat - A Health Food
Cured meats found to hold health benefits
Cured Meats for Health Heartbeats!
Spinach vs. Cured Meats
Hot Doggin' at The All-Star Game
"I'm Going to Eat More Hot Dogs"
Nitrites and nitrates are naturally found in the human body and a growing collection of medical research is showing the compounds are actually beneficial to human health, particularly cardiovascular health.
The good news for food producers is that these new-found health benefits can be gained through the consumption of nitrite/nitrate-rich foods such as cured meats and leafy green vegetables.
The findings also dispute the scare tactics of some groups that push the messaging that cured meats influence certain cancers.
If nitrites were a cancer-causing source, then commonsense would have it that green, leafy vegetables would be more of a concern than cured meats. As the table below shows, much higher levels of nitrites and nitrates are associated with vegetables than cured meats.
Read more
View table on nitrite levels in various foods
More information on nitrites and nitrates
When you think of meat do you think of health food? We talk with Dr. Nathan Bryan, an expert on the subject, whose research has shown nitrites and nitrates in cured meat are actually good for us and our hearts. Here's the science:
The science behind nitrates, nitrites and nitric oxide
Cardioprotective actions of nitrite therapy and dietary considerations
Food sources of nitrates and nitrites: the physiologic context for potential health benefits
Nitrate in foods: harmful or healthy?
Dietary nitrite prevents hypercholesterolemic microvascular inflammation and reverses endothelial dysfunction
Cardiovascular prevention by dietary nitrate and nitrite
Forward by from the medical textbook: "Food, Nutrition and the Nitric Oxide Pathway: Bioactivaton and Bioavailability." Written by Nobel Laureate Lou Ignarro
Other important information about meat as a health food:
Cancer researchers call report flawed
Cancer-meat study based on 'guesses'
Beef provides 'good' calories
Fat is an essential nutrient (click here to listen)
Fat is good for you (click here to view)
Animal-source foods improve nutrition
All fats are not created equal (click here to view) | 
