This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.
People discovered long ago how to dry meat to keep it safe for along time. This process called curing interferes with the growth ofbacteria. Curing meat is a traditional method used by many cultures.It can be done with some common chemicals. The most common is sodiumchloride — salt.
Some very harmful bacteria, like salmonella, can be controlledwith low levels of salt. But other kinds of bacteria can requirehigh levels of salt or high drying temperatures to control.
The simplest way to cure meat is to put it into a lot of roughsalt for several days. This method provided meat for the sailors whocame to the New World with Christopher Columbus.
Another method requires meat to be kept in a salty liquid, calledbrine, for several days. The meat is then hung out to dry.Traditionally, this kind of curing is done during cold wintermonths. Meat begins to break down at temperatures warmer that fivedegrees Celsius.
Today, the meat processing industry speeds up the curing process.Curing factories inject salty liquid directly into the meat. Thenhot air dries the meat quickly at temperatures of thirty-five toforty degrees.
Cured meat becomes gray. But people discovered that anothercommon chemical, nitrate, can prevent this. Nitrate is added to mostcured meats. However, the United States Food and Drug Administrationlimits the amounts. That is because nitrates can react with proteinsto form chemicals that cause cancer in laboratory animals.
Curing does not destroy all the organisms known to infectuncooked meat. The Trichinella worm, for example, causes theinfection trichinellosis (TRICK-a-NELL-o-sis). Scientists at theAmerican Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say curing doesnot completely kill the trichinella worm. They say it is killed bycooking meat to seventy-seven degrees Celsius.
Curing is an important method to preserve meat. Cooking curedmeat can provide extra safety to prevent the possibility ofinfection.
In any case, cured meats may contain a lot of salt. Doctorsadvise people with high blood pressure and heart disease to limithow much salt they eat.
This VOA Special English Agriculture Report was written by MarioRitter.