That is a bit of a mystery, isn't it? But that's the way of the food industry, like many others (such as the drug industry). Profit is the highest motivation, not the health of humanity.

Although that study establishing the link to pancreatic cancer came out in 2005, experts have known that nitrites are unhealthy for decades, easily since the 1960s. The food industry, and, in America, the FDA, sees more benefit in preserving meats and giving them an attractive red color than in protecting people.
birdgirl73 Reviewed by birdgirl73 on . Sodium Nitrate: Cancer in the refrigerator Another cancer causing food chemical exposed. SODIUM NITRATE. What is Sodium Nitrate? It is a meat persevative. It gives meat the red color when in fact the meat is more than likely a putrid grey color. If you look on the back of Sausage, hotdogs, ham, bacon and processed lunch meat labels you will see this carcinogenic chemical listed. When ingested it forms nitrosamines. Its main carcinogenic effect is on the colon and pancreas. Rating: 5