Fjölrit RALA - 22.03.1979, Page 48

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Foreward
In the fall of 1977, the leader of the Food Science
Program at the Agricultural Research Institute (ARI) and
the director of the National Institute of Environmental
Health decided to do a survey on nitrate and nitrite
content of cured meat from grocery stores in all parts
of the country. This project is a part of a larger
project at the ARI, i.e. an overall survey on nitrate
and nitrite in the Icelandic environment.
Interest in this project stems mainly from two
sources. One is a survey carried out in 1973 at the
University Science Institute in Reykjavík. The results
indicated that the nitrite content of Icelandic cured
meat was in some cases much higher than is considered
desirable. The other is the high rate of stomach cancer
in Iceland. The necessity of doing an overall research
project on the distribution of nitrate and nitrite in
Iceland was discussed at a conference in June 1977 spon-
sored jointly by the Icelandic Cancer Society and the
ARI.
The research project was carried out jointly by the
ARI and the National Institute of Environmental Health.
The ARI was responsible for analysis of the samples and
the processing of the data. A total of 96 samples were
sent to the ARI plus samples which the ARI collected
from Reykjavík and the Eastern Fiords.