Color of Poultry Meat as Influenced by Dietary Nitrates and Nitrites

NITRATES and nitrites have been used for some time in curing of red meat products. Nitrite reacts with myoglobin to produce nitrosomyoglobin which is red in color. Upon heating this nitrosomyoglobin is converted to a pink component nitrosohemochrome. The sequence in production of the cured meat color is as follows (American Meat Institute Foundation, 1960): NO3-→action bacterialNO2-NO2-+H±→pH5.4to6.0HNO2HNO2→reductionNONO+myoglobin→nitrosomyoglobin(red)Nitrosomyoglobin→heatnitro sochemochrome(Pink)Nitrate in the curing mixture is ultimately reduced to nitrite by nonpathogenic organisms. The current practice is to use both nitrates and nitrites in meat curing, since nitrite alone does not produce a desirable color. If nitrite is used alone, the concentration of nitrous acid is of such magnitude that it decomposes and N2 O3 is lost in the process. offer a possible source of undesirable pink color in certain products. The introduction of nitrates or nitrites into the meat may be possible in at least two different ways. One is the addition through the…