Representive cured products such as ham and sausage produced in Korea were purchased at retail and cooked using heating tools such as a gas range (GR), an electric range (ER) and electric range after boiled (BE). Changes of N-nitrosamine (NA), nitrate and nitrite in the cured meats containing$lt;2.0 ug/kg of N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) were checked and analyzed during their cooking process. Contents of nitrate and nitrite in ham products prior to cooking were 2.0 and 1.8 mg/kg, respectively; their contents in regular hams were slightly increased, but those of nitrate in press hams were decreased while those of nitrite were increased during its cooking process. Their contents in sausage products were 1.8 and 0.9 mg/kg; those of nitrate were decreased, while nitrite were slightly increased during its cooking process. NDMA detected only NA in all the collected cured products. Changes of NDMA, regardless of cooking methods, tend to drastically increase in all samples after their cooking; Its contents were increased by average 6.0-70.7 times in the GR samples, by average 2.4-39.2 times in the ER samples and by average 7.0-56.3 times in the BE samples. Virtually, the fact that all of this nitrosamine appeared to arise by the action of precursor such as NO_x was produced during the cooking of cured products.

This experiment was conducted to study occurrence of N-nitrosamine (NA) and its precursors such as nitrate and nitrite. For the experimental samples, 26 kinds of commercial hams and 30 kinds of sausages produced in Korea were purchased. The nitrate and nitrite were positive in all of the collected samples; nitrate levels were by average 4.4-9.2 mg/kg and nitrite ones were by average 1.3-3.6 mg/kg. The contents of nitrate and nitrite were detected higher in sausage than in ham. Especially, nitrate contents were contained higher in lyoner sausage prepared with the mixture of meat and fish, while nitrite contents were contained higher in the meat only mixture. N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) among the analyzed 7 kinds of NA was detected only in ham and sausage; its contents were outstanding in lyoner sausage which was prepared with only meat and pork sausage, and then regular ham was the next one in its order, but its contants were detected by average $lt;0.5 ug/kg in press hams added vegetable.