Water is toxic in large quantities. (I mean by drinking, not drowning)
[en.wikipedia.org]

So, saying that something which in much larger quantities is toxic shouldn't be eaten is disingenuous.

I am getting so hungry!

I want a Slim Jim now.

A lot of things are toxic in extremely high doses. Vitamin D is toxic if you get too much of it.

Just hope the guy who runs the machine that doles out the sodium nitrate doesn't fall asleep with his hand on the lever. ;)

Sodium Nitrate is found in many many foods and is not good for you at all.

I have a allergy to it and get serious migrane headaches.

This stuff is found in hot dogs, bacon, deli almost everything, ham, bacon, sausage, etc.

When you cook this stuff it has been found to transform into a carcinogen.

It doesn't seem too good for you and most people don't even know it exists. I guess I am lucky to be allergic to something that is bad for you and is only found in unhealthy food!

[en.wikipedia.org]

Oh Yeah

LOL, my first band was called mechanically separated chicken because of Slim Jims.

Just like Slim Jims, we were pretty bad and likely caused health problems.

@corsec67: So True, there are also many things that are toxic in large amounts and deadly if absent from our diet. Potassium, Iron, and even Vitamin C can all kill you in large amounts.

Many things are toxic in high quantities, and many things are explosive (both sodium nitrate and nitroglycerin are good examples) that have excellent uses when ingested in small quantities. Trisodium phosphate is used as a wallpaper stripper by contractors everywhere, and is also an additive in many foods (usually fortified breads and breakfast cereals) to add phosphate to your diet.

Sodium nitrate is a pretty simple salt, found naturally, and usually mined. And as such, it is far less scary to me than the other complicated molecules that are created in a lab from fractionating corn and soy, like ethyl 8'-apo-beta,psi-carotenoate, a.k.a. food orange 7.

@corsec67: It's always fun to warn people about the dangers of DHMO.

There are some things that are better left unknown.

With preserved "meat products" if you have to ask, then you shouldn't be eating it ;) .

@mmmsoap: Ack, misspellings. Nitrite, not nitrate. Sheesh. (Darn extra oxygen!)

@bkdlays:

It's safe to say that the Sodium Nitrate wasn't the cause of the migranes, unless you were eating absolutley immense quantities.

Migranes are not usually a sign of a food allergy, and the page that the wikipedia page "cites" regarding migranes is not a reputable source, but a website about natural foods, which is likely biased.

I'm not saying that Sodium Nitrate is healthy for you, but the idea that small amounts of it causing migranes is pretty slim. However, migranes are a common psychosomatic reaction, so it's probably all in your head.

@corsec67: Remember the woman that died in a water drinking contest?

I agree with what you're saying but I think it's worth pointing out when things are toxic in large amounts, if only because it doesn't occur to people that too much of anything can kill you.

Damnit, thanks a lot consumerist. Now I feel like a Slim Jim but I don't have any here :(

We don't have Slim Jims in my country but they're awesome and I wish we did.

Hey, I don't care what's in it. I'm just glad that they're making them again! When that plant exploded, I felt it from over a mile away. That was a bad, bad day, made worse by the lives lost.

I remember when I was in college looking at a can of potted meat and seeing the ingredient "Mechanically Separated Chicken" on the label... my brother and I started laughing uncontrollably, but to this day I cannot understand why they would specify that the chicken was "mechanically separated" unless forced to do so by some regulation. Almost nothing sounds more unappealing than applying the caveat that it was mechanically separated.

@larrymac: Penn & Teller had green activists signing a petition against DHMO. It was funny and pathetic at the same time.

I'm so tired of hearing about stuff like this. Everyone can find something bad about something and crusade against it.

Most of my "healthy eating" friends that prefer to avoid a lot (not all) bad things also drink Diet Coke. I always refer them to this site: myaspartameexperiment.com

Fish has mercury in it... also toxic. Let's stop eating that next.

What a delicious way to die.

@woogychuck: Food Detectives proved this with MSG causing migranes. A large percentage of diners who were told they were having an MSG enriched meal, though there was actually no MSG in the food, reported of headache/migrane.

@bkdlays: You said Bacon twice . . . MMmmm Baaacon . . .

I've read a lot of these types of things that expose what's inside certain foods, and it never really does much to me. Unless I find out that Slim Jims are made with dog poop, I'll probably still grab one once in a while.

Why do they feel the need to specify "mechanically seperated"? Since just about every food product goes through a machine at some point, what does the meat seperation stage require that identifier?

@corsec67: Pure oxygen can be lethal too. I reduce my breathing because I want to continue living.

@woogychuck:

Yeah but those smaller amounts actually provide a benefit. Who knows what the overall affect on your health is by consuming small doses daily.

I wonder if it's like the movies and you build an immunity.

@Taliskan: Oh trust me I know. I helped with a similar experiment with caffiene.

We gave some people caffeine free soda and told them it was and energy drink. Others recieved regularly caffeinated soda and were told it was zero caffeine. Guess which group was "jittery and hyper-alert"...

I use a piece of slim jim as bait when I'm setting a rat trap. Those long tailed devils sure love 'em.

The thing from that article that made me wanna throw up was that they use the lowest grade of beef in the product. It is called "utility" grade and is made from really old cows whose meat would ordinarily go to waste.

"...all the more tougher..."

More tougher? Really?

@Saboth: I steer clear of products with mechanically separated chicken. The thought of eating squeezings from a chicken carcass smushed in a vice just makes my stomach turn. Blech!

@Taliskan: That was a classic episode of food detective! I loved it when he told the diners half of them had ingested MSG and one woman immediately started complaining about her "symptoms," even though she hadn't eaten any of it at all.

They wisely left the part where they told here she hadn't really had any MSG on the cutting room floor, lest she look like an even bigger doofus and sue them.

@Radi0logy: yes, they are forced to label it as such, since otherwise it would fall under the "bi-product" category.

@bkdlays: Using wikipedia as a resource? Really? And they further use some bunk resource as proof? Haha.

@jaya9581: The issues with artificial sweeteners made me ignore foods that were labeled as "diet".

The Welches Reduced Sugar Grape Jelly was an example of a food that did diet in the right way: reduce the sugar, and don't replace it with crap. IIRC that jelly might have even had sucrose instead of HFCS.

My mom had issues with Diet Coke until she quit drinking it, and I just can't stand aspartame.

Curing salts contain a small percentage of sodium nitrite as a standard for inhibiting botulism. I'd assume that most of your processed/dried/cured meat products would therefore contain minute amounts of it. No big deal, just don't go on a preserved meat bender.

As we say here on Consumerist, I make my own animal sausage based jerky... but it still contains preservatives because that's rather the point of it. Bingo, anyone?

@Radi0logy: Basically, picture chicken bones left over after cutting all the muscles of meat out and running a razor over all those surfaces. It's not exactly how it happens as there are some pretty cool mechanical devices that do it, but you'd get the idea. You basically get "chicken meat" since it came from a chicken, but it doesn't really correspond to a part.

Growing up I somehow pictures robots ripping chickens apart and I figured it was better than making humans do it since that sort of thing would rot the soul. :P

@Cratin:

I always thought the whole point of sausage was to use up otherwise tough or unattractive parts of the animal. So "utility grade" beef doesn't bother me at all.

Those really old cows deserve to become Soylent SlimJims too!

Why was this covered in Wired, I wonder? Because geeks eat a lot of Slim Jims?

@mmmsoap: Yeah, but if you're going explosive, potassium chlorate is more fun. You can get sodium nitrates/nitrite out of dirt, so pretty good chances any food you eat has some just because of the ground it's been growing in.

Mmmmmmm.... Orange 7.... /homer

@jaya9581: See, you're confusing your friends. You keep referring them to that site and they think you do want to hear about that stuff.

Also, I think there are already recommendations against eating too much of certain kinds of fish because of the mercury problem.

@Saboth: Mechanically separated meat is different in that it contains a small amount of ground bones.

Is this the sort of thing that can build up in your system and become harmful later on? I'm just saying that I'm not fixing on eating 1400 Slim Jims anytime soon.

There are a ton of things that are harmful to you in large enough quantities. Hell alcohol is poison if you drink too much of it, but this doesn't stop people from drinking.

Good thing i only ate 1399 of them .. Phew

@Cratin: I'm a parent with young children. I eat lots of things that would normally go to waste. If you're going to slaughter animals for food, you ought to try to get as much use out of them as possible.

There was a "Dirty Jobs" episode where the host went to a facility that took apart cows that had died. Even the bloated corpse of an old dairy cow is useful (no meat for human consumption of course). It was both disgusting and fascinating.

@corsec67: So glad the first comment is a voice of reason.

@corsec67: Hell, even MINT can kill you if you eat enough of it.

@corsec67: If you consume it in large enough quantities, even Consumerist can kill you.

"The dose makes the poison."

I had a great "Slim Jim Eating Contest" idea.....I guess this revelation kind of throws cold water on it.