The Sausage Experiment

On Avoiding Nitrates and Nitrates While Still Enjoying Breakfast

My family and I have come to understand that animals are good for people to eat. We pretty much need 'em. Even the fat, though grain fed animals produce more fat than is strictly necessary. But grass fed is so expensive. So we do what we can.

We especially enjoy our morning bacon and sausage, though I am a bit concerned about all of the nitrogen compounds present in those delicious morsels. We tried uncured bacon, but then I read or heard (don't remember where, so no source at the moment) that bacon processed in celery juice--rather than chemical nitrates and nitrites--actually contains three orders of magnitude more of those chemicals than regular bacon. Seems there's a chemical reaction between celery juice and salt that produces nitrates and/or nitrites. Makes sense. They had to come from somewhere originally. Cured meats have been made with nitrogen salts for centuries.

So how to avoid those nitrogen salts entirely? I've decided to experiment with making my own pork breakfast sausage, uncured and unceleried. So it's not really sausage in the traditional preserved meat sense. But I hope it'll taste something like sausage and help us enjoy our morning piggies without added chemicals. And in the interest of science--and to help me remember what I did last time--I'll be recording my recipes and family reactions right here.

First Recipe

1 pound fresh ground pork (from the supermarket)
1/4 tsp each of the following:

• ground black pepper
• basil
• coriander
• oregano
• thyme

one very large garlic clove, chopped
1/2 tsp kosher salt

I just mixed it all up and let it sit in the fridge overnight, then pan fried as usual.

Family Reactions

LOTS of garlic. Could cut back a bit.
Seems to lack zip otherwise. Maybe some red pepper flakes or cayenne?

My personal feeling is that I could add more of the herbs, too.

Wait, no sage?

That's right, no sage. My wife is breastfeeding. Sage reduces milk production. Don't want to feed the eaters and starve the drinker.