Curing salt and nitrite: questions and answers
Short answers with the numbers and where they come from. Written for people who cure meat at home and want to understand what they are weighing, not just how much.
01What is curing salt?Curing salt is ordinary salt with a small, exactly known share of sodium nitrite mixed in. The salt is there to dilute the nitrite so that a home cook can weigh it.
02What does nitrite do in meat?Three jobs: it holds back the bacteria that cause botulism, it gives cured meat its pink colour, and it gives it the “cured” flavour that keeps instead of turning rancid.
03Is curing salt dangerous? Which doses are toxic?Yes, in two different ways. Straight from the pack it is a poison in amounts that fit in a spoon. In the meat, at the right dose, the concern is long-term, not acute.
04Which documents the calculators are built onEvery limit in SaltCure comes from a published US federal rule for meat plants. Those rules do not regulate home kitchens — we use them because they are the clearest public numbers there are, and the alternative is a forum post.
This page explains published rules and research. It is not medical advice and it does not certify anything you make. If someone may have swallowed curing salt or nitrite, call emergency services or a poison centre straight away.
Curing for weeks?SaltCure runs the same arithmetic on your phone and keeps the log: reminders to turn it, weigh-ins, weight loss against the band for that product. Free, offline, no account.
