Seafood in Health and Nutrition
Transformation in Fisheries and Aquaculture: Global Perspectives

Nitrite Curing of Meat:
The N-Nitrosamine Problem and Nitrite Alternatives

Dr. Fereidoon Shahidi

Once you sink your teeth into these two books, you will be better able to digest Memorial’s expertise in the biochemistry of food. Seafood in Health and Nutrition, Transformation in Fisheries and Aquaculture: Global Perspectives and Nitrite Curing of Meat: The N-Nitrosamine Problem and Nitrite Alternatives are two of Dr. Fereidoon Shahidi’s most recent publications.

The first book contains a series of articles gleaned from the proceedings of the 43rd Atlantic Fisheries Technological Conference held in St. John’s in 1998. The book is broken into thirty-eight chapters, each exploring various aspects of seafood processing, harvesting, preservation, and biochemistry.

Dr. Shahidi emphasized the international character of the book: “In the book we have authors from six or seven countries.” He also pointed out that the book contains “quite a number of contributions from different professors from Memorial.”

According to Dr. Shahidi, the focus of his other new book, Nitrite Curing of Meat, is based on the research that has been going on in his lab over the last twenty years. Co-authored by Ronald B. Pegg, the text deals with the incidence of carcinogens in some cured meats. “When you cure meat, you generally use nitrite, and under certain conditions these nitrites react with meat components to produce N-nitrosamine. These are carcinogenic and every effort has to be made to eliminate them from the food,” he said.v

The book includes information on curing and the role of nitrite in curing, as well as detailed examinations of the chemical compositions of meats and how these affect such attributes as colour and taste. The final chapter of the book maps out the practical results of the work of Dr. Shahidi’s lab at Memorial. “We give a thorough discussion of the possible substitutes for nitrite.” Dr. Shahidi sees a broad readership for this material. “These topics are of international importance,” he said, citing the poor regulatory standards for food safety in some parts of the world as the reason for the book’s usefulness. He hopes the work will help people to better understand the basic dynamics behind safe and healthy.