The whole family got together to eat and drink. As soon as there were more people, there would be more food. There would be more food, and there would be no food left.
If you go back to your next meal with your bag packed, there will often be various arguments:
Leftovers will produce nitrite if they are kept for a long time, and cancer will occur if they are eaten!
It is true that there are many reports of leftovers and nitrite causing cancer, but the truth is not so simple.
Today, Dr. Clove will talk about this topic.
Nitrite is not that terrible
In fact, nitrite itself is not a scourge in what. After excessive nitrite is eaten into the human body, it will combine with biological amines in the stomach under the action of gastric acid to form [nitrosamines].
Nitrosamines produced in the body are the substances with definite carcinogenicity.
Nitrite poisoning is a fact rather than causing cancer. It is more common in some construction sites decades ago. Chefs mistakenly used nitrite as ordinary salt to stir-fry dishes and then put down a group of people.
If it weren’t for this rare mistake, the content of nitrite naturally occurring in ordinary food is really very small, not enough to worry about poisoning or cancer.
Can eating leftovers containing nitrite cause cancer?
Enzymes contained in vegetables themselves, as well as enzymes produced by bacteria, can convert nitrates in vegetables into nitrite. In the leftovers that have been stored for a long time, bacteria will increase and correspondingly the content of nitrite will also increase.
However, this trace amount of nitrite is still far from producing nitrosamines that eventually cause cancer. Dr. Clove often said:
Talking about toxicity without dose is all hooliganism.
Whether the leftovers containing nitrite can cause definite damage depends on the content of nitrite in the food eaten.
Some studies have shown that if a newly prepared dish is put in the refrigerator without turning it over, the nitrite content will only increase from 3 mg/kg to 7 mg/kg the next day, which is far lower than the national standard.
Therefore, under normal circumstances, the nitrite content in leftovers cannot reach a level harmful to health, and it is not too big a problem to eat leftovers occasionally.
In other words, leftovers are not as horrible as rumors say. The nitrite produced in leftovers is actually not much and does not reach the carcinogenic level. It is not a big problem to eat them once in a while.
In fact, the cause of cancer is actually very complicated. It is caused by the combined action of many factors.
Four Suggestions for Stay Away from Nitrite
Although leftovers are not necessarily harmful, they are not suitable for eating often and more.
If leftovers are taken as staple food every day and nitrite is eaten too much, it is definitely not good for health.
Dr. Clove gives you 4 suggestions to let you eat at ease and stay away from the trouble of nitrite:
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Balanced diet. Eat more fresh vegetables and fruits, and eat less processed meat products such as ham sausage, sausage, smoked/bacon, etc.
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Eat less raw cold dishes. The nitrite content of mixed cold dishes is easy to be high because they are not heated and sterilized during processing and are kept at room temperature for a long time.
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Eat less leftovers. Don’t take leftovers as staple food. If you want to eat, you must refrigerate and keep them in time and heat them well before eating.
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Pay attention to pickled vegetables. When you make your own pickled vegetables at home, you must pickle them for enough time before eating them. Vegetables that have not been pickled thoroughly have a high nitrite content and are usually pickled for about 20 days. In addition, you can wash them with water before eating pickled vegetables, because nitrite is dissolved in water, and washing them with water can remove some nitrite.