Celery in meat - more deception?
UPDATE, 12-19-2025: I just learned that synthetic nitrites, aka pink salt, are pink because red dye is added to it. But, since it's at such a low percentage it is not required to be labeled on the meat (more bs in my mind). So that would be a point for Team Celery; however, with red dyes being banned, all the red dyed pink curing salts are now being phased out. So point is nullified, Team Celery still loses. Today we're talking about something that really irks me, really gets my britches in a bunch, really makes my blood boil, really drives me up the wall....but I will do my best to not devolve into anger and name-calling, I am clearly a professional so we'll keep this educational and factual because that's what you're here for and I don't even know where to get knickers from to twist. I'm obviously in such a state of controlled rage because it's Easter and so up popsCELERY. 😡Obviously. The gist of it: My belief is that nitrates and nitrites in meat should be avoided due to the creation of nitrosamines and that this is created whether the nitrates/ites are from the chemically pure lab-created (aka synthetic) nitrate/ite or if they are from concentrated nitrates/ites derived from celery because the same reactions will occur and be treated by your body in exactly the same way and it's best avoided. To further confuse matters, "their [synthetic nitrate/ites compared to those derived from celery] chemical composition is absolutely the same, and so are the health effects," says Joseph Sebranek, Ph.D., Morrison Endowed Chair in meat science at Iowa State University. 1 Just like how my blood sugar will spike if I eat a spoonful of sugar or a hunk of sugar cane. 🥄🌿REGARDLESS of what the label on the raw sugar cane says - it could say "natural", it could say "organic", it could saw "raw", it could say "derived from natural locations".....my blood sugar will spike because my digestive system is 100% immune from marketing gimmicks or downright deceptions.A+ work digestive system....please teach the eyes. 👁👃👁 Finding smoked meats without any added nitrates/ites in ANY form from animals raised well and organically on a small farm and then processed by an animal-welfare approved butcher that cares about health is quite a feat! Congratulations! 🎺🎺🎺Pictured: our $99 March Bundle of the Month (not pictured: included recipe cards and all the transparency we offer, mostly because it's transparent).Now that it's Easter time, the SMALL FARMS I follow are out there telling their customers that their hams are "uncured" and contain NO nitrates/ites because they use "celery" and therefore it's healthy....either they are directly saying it's healthier or are very heavily implying it. But they are literally say "NO nitrates/ites included" in their emails and social posts.Which is actually 3 lies. ‼ Lie 1. It's not uncured. Celery-derived nitrates/ites are chemically the same BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE. No literally. There's more. Since the USDA will not classify celery-derived nitrates/ites as being a curing agent (which makes zero science-sense) they will also not regulate it's use and so it's basically it's like the wild wild west.Not only that, but I have had butchers personally tell me that they then use MORE just to be "safe"!And the fact that nitrate/ite levels in meats using celery-derived nitrate/ite compounds is at least the same as synthetically sourced nitrate/ite was actually found to be true by researchers. So again, the chemical will behave the same, like a curing agent, regardless of how it came to be. Chemistry. Lie 2. It's just some celery - you know, the green leafy vegetable that is good for you. Well, yes but no. That's just like saying high-fructose corn syrup or glucose syrup is corn. 🌽Yes, but no. Yes it was derived from corn but after extensive further processing and concentration. If you told me "here's some corn for you to eat", I would imagine a cob of corn or perhaps a bag of frozen corn, I wouldn't think you were handing me a spoonful of glucose syrup. Same with the celery.They are not rubbing the meat with a stalk of celery, they are highly refining and processing the celery to extract out the naturally-occurring nitrates/ites and concentrate them which they then use as a substitute for pure synthetic nitate/ite curing salts. The entire point of adding the celery-derived nitrate/ites is for the nitrates/ites, not for flavor or nutrients or color or anything else. Nobody is even pretending there is any other reason for it's use except to act as a cure. Lie 3. It's healthier. I feel like we proved the point as far as celery nitrates/ites are the same chemically as synthetic ones and your intestinal tract also can't read, so just like my intestinal tract, it is what it is.The nitrosamines are created and probably cause colorectal cancer. But, wait, the celery option itself actually gets even a little bit worse. Okay, so it's true that nitrates/ites naturally occur in foods - especially leafy vegetables or any veggies with higher water content (because nitrates/ites occur in water) so then the veggies themselves concentrate that, some a little more than others, and we eat it, but that is seemingly okay. Kind of like how nicotine is naturally occurring in some veggies and actually might be good for you in small doses of that raw form, but I'm doing my best to stay focused here. Just remember, the problem seems to be the heating up of the nitrates/ites in a protein-rich environment, not necessarily the nitrates/ites themselves.Okay so what else are veggies that are full of water going to be full of? That's right - pesticides, herbicides and whatever else is floating around in or dissolved in all that water they are drinking or being splashed with. Celery currently ranks #16 on the EWG's pesticide contamination list (again, they don't look at any of the other -ides) and, here's the kicker! Non-organic celery is used to make celery-derived nitrates/ites even for organic products! 3So along with those celery nitrates/ites comes the concentration of whatever else was in that celery. I mean, at this point, if we didn't have this godsend of an option with our butcher of "D. None of the above".-------> we would choose synthetic over "celery". <------- Now at this point I should just leave well enough alone and send you on your merry way to digest all this info but I'm not really a professional like was indicated earlier so before we go, I'd like to show you this label and you tell me if it's telling you the truth and can be trusted or if it's deceiving you: It's hard to read but under the white banner it says "No Nitrates or Nitrites Added" and then in the asterisk at the very bottom in the white it says "except those naturally occurring in....celery powder" which you'll see below was added. 🤣 what?? so which is it? added or not added?That would be like if the Snickers or whatever candy bar said "no sugar added except for those naturally occurring in corn" instead of "high fructose corn syrup". 🤯And, of course, it says "uncured" in giant letters as part of the name, which it chemically is not Again, the back is hard to read though it does say you can have "peace of mind" eating this (more like, I'll give you a piece of my mind Applegate).A close-up of just the ingredients is included. Notice that the celery is not organic even though this is an organic product. It's not just celery. Some butchers will say "vegetable" or use carrots or beets or some other veggie or combo of veggies but it's all the same - a veggie being highly processed to extract and concentrate nitrates/ites to then be used as a better sounding cure. Could actually be worse depending on how much those other vegs concentrate bad stuff. Okay so they both said "no nitrates/ites added" but also then added the concentrated form of celery nitrates/ites which is chemically exactly the same as the synthetic nitrates/ites and behaves exactly the same way....as a cure.Okay and here's a picture of our label - what do you notice? The label says "uncured", the ingredient list does not include any vegetables or any asterisks that say "except for..." so it really is uncured and there really are no nitrates/ites added. Just good meat that was in a salt & sugar brine and then smoked the old-fashioned way using a smokehouse and hardwood chips! No water injections or reforming either. Just a smoked ham. That's right - actually no nitrates added. Congratulations! You have just unlocked a new set of decoder glasses complete with a ring! 👓💍This is a big deal, as the "Celery in Meat" ring + glasses are both are very hard to collect. This got much longer than I expected so I am going to save the butcher story for next week. I am also a little concerned I'm on the verge of starting a cult with all these secret super powers I am giving you so stay tuned for part 2 as to why and how we ended up here - clean meat, raised organically on our small farm and processed well. No way are we going to work so hard on raising the best meat we can (hand-fed pastured pigs!) only to have questionable ingredients added at the butcher! Hard pass. Of course if you want to eat meats with nitrates/ites in any form - great! If you aren't worried about nitrosamines, great! If you don't think I'm right or my references are not trustworthy, that's all fine. Of course, you probably shouldn't expect to be invited to present at the Annual Convention of Chemists, aka ChemCon, but that's fine, you've got better things to do anyway. 🧪 I just want you to be able to have the CORRECT and trustworthy information you need to make those decisions. And right now, "uncured" meats and "celery" are a huge pile of lies, deception and greenwashing. This really might be the worst example of greenwashing I can think of, specifically because we assume the word celery = better and we assume we can trust all these small farms. It's actually worse even than meat being able to be labelled "Product of USA" no matter where it's from because at least small farms aren't doing that to their blindly trusting customers. Ugh, it all just makes me so sad and frustrated. Also a small pro-tip, according to my chef friend, celery is best left out of broth making too as it brings some unpleasant flavors with it (nitrate is that you??). So keep celery in its place: Bloody Marys and we'll all be fine and live forever. Hmm, a drink actually sounds really good right now. Thanks for being a part of our little farm and I hope you really can trust us - I don't think we are self-deceived (although that's the thing about being self-deceived) and we do our best to be as transparent and honest as possible, but you'll never get the full story until our reality show becomes reality. ❤ Your farmer & founding-member-of-the-Church-of-the-Flying-Anticelery-Monster friend, Stephanie Schneider
