[lightarrow]

What is a "quiche"? I don't find it in the dictionary.

James Bonds favorite when nothing is in the cooler except for eggs and some cheese etc.
Who says real men do not eat quiche, it is similar to pizza gain in Italia. Yummy
You must get out more often, the fantastic cooking around the world, I will see you when you appear on a cooking show that is my distance in travels :-)...
quiche   /kiʃ/  Show Spelled[keesh]  Show IPA
–noun
a pielike dish consisting of an unsweetened pastry shell filled with a custard and usually containing cheese and other ingredients, as vegetables, seafood, or ham: spinach quiche.

lightarrow, I'll do my best to explain what a "quiche" is.
It's a French version of a savoury flan or an un-covered pie.
The word comes from the Garman for Cake (kuchen)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiche

Rosalind

Thank you Tommya300, thank you Rosalind!

[lightarrow]

lightarrow

"when the average of two analyses shows concentrations of nitrate that exceed 10 milligrams per liter (parts per million), or nitrite concentrations that exceed 1 milligram per liter, public drinking water suppliers are required to notify their customers to provide an alternate source of drinking water for all liquids or foods prepared for infants under six months of age."

Don't know if it refers to USA or UK or else, anyway Italy is more restrictive for what concerns nitrites = NO2-, since the limit is only 0.5 milligrams per liter (for nitrates is less restrictive, since the limit is 50, however there is also the limit: [NO3-]/50 + [NO2-]/0.5 < 1).

lightarrow, when I noticed that you live in Italy then I thought that
you might be aware of the EU food laws.
That is interesting to know that Italy is far more restrictive with Nitrates and Nitrites,

It is more restrictive with nitrites, not with nitrates, as I wrote.

if only the UK governments were the same.

There are adventages and disadvantages, of course, in a government with respect to another. Our government should be more restrictive, in the sense of be really able to apply the laws, in a great number of things, including environment pollution, just to make an example.

But if Nitrites are dangerous then they should never have been put in any sort of food, I think.

It depends on how much dangerous. Do you have an idea of how much dangerous it is to live in a place with high levels of radiactive Radon? Usually these things are not well advertised, but Radon is one of the most important factors of risk of lung cancer in the population.

http://www.radonseal.com/radon-health-risks.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radon

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, radon is the second most frequent cause of lung cancer, after cigarette smoking, causing 21,000 lung cancer deaths per year in the United States.

[Bored chemist]

What are you planning to eat?

Apples, apricots, almonds and many other plants have cyanide in them.
As discussed, lots of green veg have nitrate.
Potatoes and tomatoes have solanine and/ or related toxins.
You have a choice of foods treated with fungicides, which may be toxic, or foods that are untreated and will probably be affected by fungi; some of the most potent carcinogens known are fungal products.
Then you cook the food or face an increased risk of food  poisoning from uncooked food.
Cooking produces other materials- probably the most famous is acrylamide- which are carcinogenic.
Cooked meat (particularly roast or fired) contains a whole bunch of heterocyclic amines that are known carcinogens.

And yet we are all living longer healthier lives than any of our ancestors.

Incidentally, re. the government and the permitted limits. It used to be a long-running joke that the Russians had the world's strictest controls on worker's exposure to industrial chemicals.
They also had just one inspector and his deputy to cover the entire USSR.

[rosalind dna (OP)]

As long as your kidneys are working properly the potassium is not going to make any difference. There's lots of it in your diet and the body uses what it needs and excretes the rest in the urine.

We have been eating nitrates since ever we existed, they are present in quite a variety of green vegetables.

Some of the nitrate we ingest will be metabolised by gut bacteria to nitrite.

Some, but not all of that nitrite will go on to form nitrosamines.
If it reacts with a primary amine then you will get a little nitrogen gas and the corresponding alcohol. Since proteins are full of primary amines, most of the nitrite will be degraded this way.
If some reacts with secondary amines to form nitrosamines then there is a risk that these will cause cancer.

However, you need to look at the other side of the risk/benefit analysis too.
Putting nitrites (or nitrates) into things like quiche will stop botulism from growing in it; it also reduces the growth of other bugs. (They also make meat products look more pink/red which improves their selling power)

You are trading a very small risk of cancer against the small risk of death from food borne bacteria.

Hi Bored chemist, thanks for your answer, but I don't drink alcohol so
that's irrelevant.

I am aware that nitrates are in most if not all foods but it's nitrItes
that I've eaten in that quiche but will never ever purchase again.

Yes we all have loads of bacteria in our bodies including our guts and
some can become dangerous like salmonella. But that's not a cancer causing
thing.

Although your comment about me possibly dieing from nitrites, I will die
one day anyway.

[rosalind dna (OP)]

What are you planning to eat?

Apples, apricots, almonds and many other plants have cyanide in them.
As discussed, lots of green veg have nitrate.
Potatoes and tomatoes have solanine and/ or related toxins.
You have a choice of foods treated with fungicides, which may be toxic, or foods that are untreated and will probably be affected by fungi; some of the most potent carcinogens known are fungal products.
Then you cook the food or face an increased risk of food  poisoning from uncooked food.
Cooking produces other materials- probably the most famous is acrylamide- which are carcinogenic.
Cooked meat (particularly roast or fired) contains a whole bunch of heterocyclic amines that are known carcinogens.

And yet we are all living longer healthier lives than any of our ancestors.

Incidentally, re. the government and the permitted limits. It used to be a long-running joke that the Russians had the world's strictest controls on worker's exposure to industrial chemicals.
They also had just one inspector and his deputy to cover the entire USSR.

What are you planning to eat?

Apples, apricots, almonds and many other plants have cyanide in them.
As discussed, lots of green veg have nitrate.
Potatoes and tomatoes have solanine and/ or related toxins.
You have a choice of foods treated with fungicides, which may be toxic, or foods that are untreated and will probably be affected by fungi; some of the most potent carcinogens known are fungal products.
Then you cook the food or face an increased risk of food  poisoning from uncooked food.
Cooking produces other materials- probably the most famous is acrylamide- which are carcinogenic.
Cooked meat (particularly roast or fired) contains a whole bunch of heterocyclic amines that are known carcinogens.

And yet we are all living longer healthier lives than any of our ancestors.

Incidentally, re. the government and the permitted limits. It used to be a long-running joke that the Russians had the world's strictest controls on worker's exposure to industrial chemicals.
They also had just one inspector and his deputy to cover the entire USSR.

Bored Chemist, I'll eat most fresh fruit and/or fresh veg, not
almonds, I don't like them. But yes I do know that their kernels have cyanide in them.
I like fresh apples, apricots, peaches, nectarines, avocados, potatoes, tomatoes etc, etc.

Although I've been eating fresh fruit and fresh veg also fresh fish all of my life. But they all contain vitamins and certain but necessary chemicals. Like chlorophyll in green leaves. 
and so on. I cook lots of my food unless it fruit(s(.

I do know the old joke about the single food inspector for the whole of the
former USSR.

[Bored chemist]

As long as your kidneys are working properly the potassium is not going to make any difference. There's lots of it in your diet and the body uses what it needs and excretes the rest in the urine.

We have been eating nitrates since ever we existed, they are present in quite a variety of green vegetables.

Some of the nitrate we ingest will be metabolised by gut bacteria to nitrite.

Some, but not all of that nitrite will go on to form nitrosamines.
If it reacts with a primary amine then you will get a little nitrogen gas and the corresponding alcohol. Since proteins are full of primary amines, most of the nitrite will be degraded this way.
If some reacts with secondary amines to form nitrosamines then there is a risk that these will cause cancer.

However, you need to look at the other side of the risk/benefit analysis too.
Putting nitrites (or nitrates) into things like quiche will stop botulism from growing in it; it also reduces the growth of other bugs. (They also make meat products look more pink/red which improves their selling power)

You are trading a very small risk of cancer against the small risk of death from food borne bacteria.

Hi Bored chemist, thanks for your answer, but I don't drink alcohol so
that's irrelevant.

I am aware that nitrates are in most if not all foods but it's nitrItes
that I've eaten in that quiche but will never ever purchase again.

Yes we all have loads of bacteria in our bodies including our guts and
some can become dangerous like salmonella. But that's not a cancer causing
thing.

Although your comment about me possibly dieing from nitrites, I will die
one day anyway.

I didn't mention alcohol; I referred to the alcohols produced from amines.
Not drinking alcohol probably makes a lot more difference to your chances of getting cancer than worrying about nitrites will.

Chlorophyll is not needed in the human diet.

Plenty of the bugs in out guts can produce toxins; why worry about cancer in particular, when you should be worrying about all the possible risks?