Talk:Curing (food preservation)

Nasopharyngeal cancer
The comment about salt cured meat being assosiated with nasopharyngeal cancer needs to be referenced. Looked it up, doesn't seem to be anything on it. May I suggest removing the comment? 60.242.64.202 13:38, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

In General
No offense intended to the author, but the article is poorly written and amateurish in general much to its detriment. Also there are basically no references. I would suggest that a biochemist take a look and rewrite most of this article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 204.65.67.71 (talk) 18:27, 9 March 2007 (UTC).
 * I'm not the author but I have a response. If you know a biochemist, please ask them to rewrite this article.  If you don't know one and think the article could be improved, then either improve it or let it pass.  Telling people the article is badly written serves no constructive purpose.  If someone is going to edit this page it's because they want to, not because you write a comment about it 67.170.68.116 22:58, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Positive (i.e., how to improve) criticism, when available, is likely (but not certain) to be more valuable than simply drawing attention to unclear and/or poorly thot-thru content. Lack of refs is a fundamental weakness, always worth drawing attention to and exhorting its diligent correction.  Conversely, editors who are annoyed by hearing "negative" criticism, are free to take to heart the adage that "If you can't stand the heat, you really should have the sense to stay out of the kitchen." --Jerzy•t 08:23, 31 October 2016 (UTC) Hmm, maybe u just can't ping yrslf --Jerzy•t 08:26, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Sweetcure
I just had a BLT made with "Honey Sweetcured Bacon" - excellent! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.74.176.98 (talk) 13:02, 25 July 2007‎
 * I'd like to point out that the article says that using sugar in whatever form doesn't add significantly to the flavor, with the exception of bacon. Farmer John's sells a breakfast sausage flavored with maple syrup, and the difference in taste is quite pronounced. JDZeff (talk) 23:13, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Is cured meat precooked? Must it ever be cooked before consumption, for safety?
The article is ambiguous on this point, and it's an important question, since curing is itself related to food safety issues.

Also, in what cases is refrigeration necessary (if ever)? The article suggests that cured meats need not be refrigerated. --Parsiferon 03:51, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Lactobacilli resistant to osmosis?
Does anybody know why the "good guys" described in the article do not fall prey to the high salt content? Does it not result in osmosis with them? I skimmed through the linked article but found no answer at first glance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.160.97.229 (talk) 04:30, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Health effects
A section with this name would be good. See here to see why... Malick78 (talk) 18:47, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Absolutely. There was a May 2010 report covered by the media indicating a strong link between chemical preservatices and heart disease as well as diabetes.  I will get to covering this over the next week. - Shiftchange (talk) 10:59, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Fermentation
The article claims that the bacteria consumes the sugar, and therefore this is a process of fermentation. The Wiki article on fermentation, of course, defines it is -yeast- consuming sugar and producing alcohol. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.126.105.27 (talk) 20:19, 18 April 2008‎

Bacteria converting sugars to lactic acid is also fermentation Gigemag76 (talk) 16:07, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm confused...
Hi. The lead says "The use of food dehydration was the earliest form of food curing." The history section says "Food curing dates back to ancient times, both in the form of smoked meat and as salt-cured meat", and at the end the article says "cold smoking does not and is the oldest form of smoking meat for preservation, as the food is only exposed to the cooler smoke of the wood before it exits the smoking device." (This sentence says it is the oldest because the food is only exposed to the cooler smoke… Is that what it means to say?) So which is older, or are smoking and dehydrating the same? I'm afraid I don't know enough about the subject to figure this out. Thanks for clarifying. Tlqk56 (talk) 22:22, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
 * It's dubious material which was recently added here --Epipelagic (talk) 02:21, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I propose that Meat preservation be merged into Curing (food preservation). I think that the Meat preservation article was created by mistake as a duplicate in 2010, some 4 years after this article's creation. The corresponding (and very detailed) French Wikipedia article Conservation_de_la_viande possessed no link to other language Wikipedia articles at that time (I just edited that today). The user (User:Égoïté, fr:Utilisateur:Égoïté), while editing heavily the French article, attempted to transpose it into English Wikipedia by creating the brief Meat preservation article. That seemingly lead to creating a duplicate. Note that the French article discusses meat as well as fish and game preservation, since "viande" designate any kind of animal flesh, technically including fish but sometimes understood as only mammal's flesh (same ambiguity as in English). — Preceding unsigned comment added by MiWikip (talk) 11:06, 21 August 2012‎

Sure, merge. A good idea. Hafspajen (talk) 14:24, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Lye?
Could we add a section on lye curing? Lye is used to cure fish (e.g lutefisk) and olives among other foods. I'm afraid I don't know much about it beyond that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cladist (talk • contribs) 21:25, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

"latest discoveries concerning meat preservation stem from ... nuclear physics??!"
Introduced in Revision as of 17:12, 16 July 2015 (by Kiku)

--Ymorkata (talk) 15:17, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Link to other languages (Nederlands)
Can someone change the existing "Nederlands" link (= inleggen) to Conserveren_(voedsel). The last one is the more general term (inleggen is just one form of conserveren) I tried to do this but I am afraid I don't properly understand how this works Rikvado (talk) 12:20, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm not seeing what you are talking about. Is it in some template?  Dennis Brown - 2&cent; 14:38, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
 * This matter used to be handled as part of the markup on the article page, but now is effected via WikiData. That article on the facility may be helpful, but in any case IIRC it's probably most efficient to get a specialist to help; check out WP:Wikidata and WP:language link --Jerzy•t 08:01, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Is curing done to raw or cooked meat?
The article currently says nothing about this, and I think it's fairly relevant. So whoever knows about this, please contribute. Silver hr (talk) 09:13, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

Commercial term "uncured"
The term "uncured" has become a fashionable marketese for processed meat brands recently, because of research showing that nitrite/nitrate's connection with cancer.

Maybe those of yous in the know can add some bit on this trend?

Modern Developments Have "Begun" to Supplant it?
"Curing has been the dominant method of meat preservation for thousands of years, although modern developments like refrigeration and synthetic preservatives have begun to complement and supplant it."

While I doubt anyone is going to get confused, this seems to imply that refrigeration and preservatives have only started to exist and is only just beginning to replace older methods (which are implied to still be predominant). Refrigeration has existed for over a century. Preservatives are almost ubiquitous in all but the developing world. I suggest changing the paragraph to the following:

"Curing was the dominant method of meat preservation for thousands of years and is still the dominant method in some parts of the world without access to newer methods of preservation which are currently more common/widespread (such as refrigeration and preservatives)." Nyxified (talk) 22:07, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

Failed verification on ref 32
The reference to nitrites not reducing the growth rate of botulism toxin bacteria says no such thing. Instead, it is a link to a nakedly opinionated European article about how cured meats are “killing us” and the whole concept of curing is a cover-up by nefarious members of “the meat industry”. A primary source should be required for such a bold and authoritative-sounding statement as “[nitrites] have no effect on the growth of the bacteria which causes botulism]”. At a minimum, that statement should at least appear in the cited article.

In fact, glancing over this article again, and thoroughly examining Reference 32, I recommend its complete removal unless a section on ‘popular opinion in Europe’ is added. 2601:46:C601:6D31:1D6B:35A0:BF9:CE4F (talk) 06:24, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Foam (culinary) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 17:05, 27 June 2024 (UTC)