Is Dietary Nitrate Good For You

Can make certain food items more flavorful.

Is dietary nitrate good for you. Levels can vary up to 10 000 fold for lettuce and nitrates within drinking. The new study looked at consuming nitrate levels of 18 8 mg per kg of bodyweight or 1 316 mg per day for a 70 kg adult as part of a traditional japanese diet. It s virtually impossible to reliably estimate dietary nitrate intake because content in food is hugely variable. Sodium nitrate can bring about a complex combination of texture aroma temperature and taste making those food items with sodium nitrate applied to them more flavorful and tastier to consumers.

The rest comes from veggies and our drinking water. According to the centers for disease control and prevention cured meats only account for about 6 percent of our dietary nitrate intake. Why nitrates are good for you. It has been estimated that on average in the us and europe adults consume 1 2 mmol of nitrate daily 80 of which derives from vegetables 2 3.

Is sodium nitrate bad for you. Food manufacturers often add nitrates to processed meats such as hot dogs luncheon meat bacon ham and sausages to enhance their color and shelf life. Vegetables such as celery leafy greens beets parsley leeks endive cabbage and fennel contain the most but all plants contain some nitrates. Researchers from the kyorin university school of medicine in tokyo japan and the karolinska institutet in sweded report their findings in the journal nitric oxide.

What we need is a trial in which volunteers are fed matched vegetables with high or low nitrate content. If you choose to consume processed meat limit your consumption to once or twice a month or purchase nitrate free varieties. Sodium nitrate is a natural part of any diet and while excess amounts can be bad for you it also has a place in medicine. And that enzymatic activity begins in the mouth.

The contribution of food and water to an individual s nitrate intake will clearly vary depending on vegetable consumption and the local concentration of nitrate in drinking water. For example a study in the new england journal of medicine concluded. Medically reviewed by peggy pletcher m s r d l d cde most of us are aware that food companies use additives to extend the shelf life of their products. Therefore indications that dietary nitrate or nitrite reduces cardiovascular disease risk are insufficient to relax standards for nitrate in drinking water and foods.

So the bioactive form of nitrate is the nitrite.