Assessment of nitrate, nitrite and chloride in selected cured meat products and their exposure to school children in Brunei Darussalam

Abstract

The readily available, good taste and easy to prepare cured meat products have become a prominent feature in children’s diet, leading to possible overconsumption of certain food additives. In this study, amount of nitrite, nitrate and salt, with mean values of 12.8 mg/kg, 20.2 mg/kg and 0.94 g/100 g, respectively and their intake from consumption of cured meat products (sausages, salamis, meatloaves and meatballs), were estimated for 2339 school children. The estimated salt intake for overall children was 0.53–1.01 g/day, where none of the children’s salt intake exceeded their age group’s Tolerable Upper Intake level. While the average estimated intake of nitrate and nitrite were at 0.08 mg/kg b.w/day and 0.05 mg/kg b.w/day, respectively. Based on the above estimation, ∼20% of the total children exceeded the Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) of nitrite of 0.07 mg/kg b.w/day while none of the children exceeded the ADI of nitrate of 3.7 mg/kg b.w/day.