Nitrites: “We have to put an end to charcuterie for the ailments on the one hand, and that for the poor on the other! »

In September 2017, the French discovered, thanks to your book “Cochonneries. How charcuterie became a poison” (La Découverte), that the pink ham on sale in our supermarkets owed its beautiful color and long shelf life to the use, by manufacturers, of nitrate additives (nitrate and nitrite) giving rise to nitroso compounds which have a carcinogenic effect. Five years later, despite the shock caused by these revelations, charcuterie with nitrite and/or nitrate is still authorized…

Guillaume Coudray. The situation today is paradoxical: on the one hand, things are progressing in terms of the supply of nitrite- and nitrate-free products, but on the other, and this is downright unbearable, nothing is happening on the regulatory and legislative side. . Over the past five years, under the combined effect of media pressure, actions taken by the League Against Cancer, Yuka and Foodwatch, and the parliamentary mission chaired by MP Richard Ramos [MoDem, du Loiret, NDLR], many manufacturers have in fact developed ranges of charcuterie that no longer contain these additives. Even a very mainstream brand like Cochonou, for example, has gotten into it.

For some manufacturers, products without nitro additives now represent a third of turnover. But, as if nothing had happened, the same manufacturers continue to offer, in parallel, products made with nitro additives. The coexistence of these two ranges