Food, Influence & Why Ingredients Matter (Especially Nitrites)

I’m Todd Garrett, accountant by trade, cattle rancher at heart, and health nut by necessity. Driven by a commitment to better health and better food, I co-founded Born & Raised, a grass-fed, pasture-raised meat producer based in East Texas, where our animals are never raised with added hormones or antibiotics.

If you’ve been around agriculture long enough, you learn something important:

Industries influence narratives.

And sometimes those narratives shape what ends up on your plate.

How We Got Here

Back in the 1960s, heart disease rates were rising sharply. Researchers were trying to understand why.

Early investigations pointed strongly toward smoking and sugar as major contributors. But powerful industries don’t go quietly.

Historical research has shown that the sugar industry funded scientists to downplay sugar’s role in heart disease and shift the focus toward dietary fat and cholesterol. Around the same time, tobacco companies were busy funding their own “counter research” to cast doubt on links between smoking and disease.

Meanwhile, red meat became a convenient target.

Over time, dietary guidelines shifted. The food pyramid many of us grew up with emphasized limiting red meat and fat.

Years later, the conversation has evolved. We now understand that processed meats — not whole cuts of responsibly raised beef — are where much of the health risk data concentrates.

That distinction matters.

Processed Meat, Nitrites & What You Should Know

One of the biggest concerns with certain processed meats is the use of nitrites and nitrates as preservatives.

Nitrites are commonly added to products like conventional bacon, hot dogs, and deli meats. When exposed to high heat or certain conditions in the body, they can form compounds called nitrosamines — which have been linked to increased cancer risk.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies processed meat as a Group 1 carcinogen. That classification is tied specifically to processed products — not fresh beef, lamb, or unprocessed red meat.

There are also concerns about:

• Increased risk of gastrointestinal cancers
  

• Methemoglobinemia (“blue baby syndrome”) in infants
  

• Possible thyroid disruption
  

• Greater risk when processed meats are cooked at very high temperatures
  

Context matters here.

Vegetables naturally contain nitrates too — but they also contain antioxidants like vitamin C that help prevent harmful compound formation. That’s very different from processed meats with added preservatives and no protective nutrients.

What We Do at Born & Raised

At Born & Raised, we made a decision early on:

If we’re going to offer processed products, they need to be made differently.

We do not use added nitrites in our processed offerings.

That means a shorter shelf life. It means more care in storage. It means we don’t get the convenience of long-term preservation chemicals.

But it also means we eliminate the specific concerns tied to nitrite-added products.

I like having the option to microwave one of our smoked chicken links when life gets busy. Convenience matters. But ingredients matter more.

We believe you should be able to read the label and understand what’s in your food.

Follow the Money, Then Follow Nature

One thing farm life teaches you is this:

Biology doesn’t care about lobbying dollars.

Animals respond to nutrition.
Soil responds to management.
Plants respond to sunlight.

And the human body responds to what we consistently put into it.

I’m not suggesting you panic about everything you’ve ever eaten.

I am suggesting you slow down and ask:

• Who funded the research behind this claim?
  

• What incentives were involved?
  

• Does this make sense biologically?
  

When in doubt, I lean toward food that looks like food.

Meat that came from an animal raised on pasture.
Vegetables that grew in the ground.
Ingredients I can pronounce.

It’s not flashy. It’s not trendy.

But it’s steady.

And steady tends to work.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s this:

Health decisions get clearer when you strip away noise, follow the money, and return to biological common sense.

We’re just trying to do our part — raise animals the right way and offer food you can feel confident feeding your family.

No hype.
No shortcuts.
Just honest food.