What are the 'corns' in corned beef?
Corned beef Corned beef Corned beef is a salt-cured beef product. The term comes from the treatment of the meat with large-grained rock salt, also called "corns" of salt. It is featured as an ingredient in many cuisines. Most recipes include nitrates or nitrites, which convert the natural myoglobin in beef to nitrosomyoglobin, giving a pink color. Nitrates and nitrites reduce the risk of dangerous botulism during curing by inhibiting the growth of "Clostridium botulinum" spores, but have been shown to be linked to increased cancer risk. Beef cured with salt only has a gray color and is sometimes called "New England
Corned beef "corned beef", the word may refer to the coarse, granular salts used to cure the beef. The word "corned" may also refer to the corns of potassium nitrate, also known as saltpeter, which were formerly used to preserve the meat. Although the practice of curing beef was found locally in many cultures, the industrial production of corned beef started in the British Industrial Revolution. Irish corned beef was used and traded extensively from the 17th century to the mid-19th century for British civilian consumption and as provisions for the British naval fleets and North American armies due to its nonperishable