The determination of nitrate and nitrite in cured meat by HPLC/UV.

A rapid strong anion exchange HPLC/UV procedure has been developed for the determination of nitrate and nitrite in a wide variety of cured meats. The accuracy of this technique has been confirmed by the good agreement achieved with the existing British Standard colorimetric method. The applicability and repeatability of the procedure has been established in a survey of over 200 samples. The agreement between duplicate determinations and their respective means averaged +/- 3.4% for nitrite and +/- 4.3% for nitrate as defined by the term [(a - b)/(a + b)] X 100% where a and b are the repeat determination values.