Deli Meat Has Long Been Linked to Health Problems. Inside the Race to Make Cold Cuts Healthier.

I CAN’T LOOK too closely at ham.

My daughter loves the stuff, though. With a slice of white American cheese and a squiggle each of Kewpie mayo and yellow mustard, there’s nothing she’d rather eat between two slices of bread. But when I remove that glistening pink pork slice from its plastic wrap, I do so with two pinched fingers, as if I were transferring something questionable. Because, in essence, I guess I am.

Even though the deli meat category is worth an estimated $217 billion globally—and projected to grow further, fueled by the demand for quick, protein-rich options—nutrition researchers have long known that cold cuts are awful for us.

The World Health Organization has, since 2015, classified cured meats as a Group 1 carcinogen. Research over decades has linked a diet heavy in the food additives found in processed meat to a slew of health problems beyond cancer, too, including type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

And now a whole bunch of influencers online are decrying cold cuts as an ultra-processed food while they toss packs of lunch meat into garbage cans. “They’re packed with nitrates, nitrites, preservatives, and emulsifiers. Lunch meat is like rocket fuel for inflammation. Start cleaning your fridge now,” says Pete Sulack, a chiropractor and holistic influencer with 960K followers on Instagram.

There’s a #MAHA bent to all these claims, too. “To Make America Healthy Again, we must return to the basics,” reads the latest Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., helped to formulate. “With a dramatic reduction in highly processed foods laden with refined carbohydrates, added sugars, excess sodium, unhealthy fats, and chemical additives, this approach can change the health trajectory for so many Americans.”

The mounting social media and political pressure have the lunch meat industry shook. Deli counter sales have been trending downward, according to recent data from the market analytics firm Circana.

Yet at least one of America’s largest producers of cold cuts believes it can innovate its way out of worrying trends. The company is close to reaching a goal that has taken it roughly a decade to achieve: a near-complete product line of “clean” cold cuts, redesigned for the wellness age.

It’s a meat feat that goes well beyond your typical “uncured” products at the grocery store, the company says. And its team was so proud of that fact that they invited me down to their facilities to experience it for myself.

Inside the Meat Lab

THE HEADQUARTERS OF Dietz & Watson sits just north of the Delaware River in an industrialized area of northeast Philadelphia, a city that might well be called the deli meat capital of America. Philly is so dedicated to its hoagie culture (don’t you dare call them “subs”) that, in 1992, then mayor Ed Rendell publicly declared the hoagie—not the cheesesteak—the official sandwich of the city. At Wawa, a gas station and hoagie shop chain proliferating throughout the metropolitan area, it’s not uncommon to see a Philly dude sporting a tattoo of a flying goose, the company’s logo.

To tour Dietz & Watson’s 350,000-square-foot production facility is to look very closely at ham. Nearly everywhere you step in the factory, there is the smell of smoked meat; a color palette of pink, beige, and brown; brick floors glistening with sodium bicarbonate cleaning solution. The processing floor is bracingly cold, and everyone is wrapped in hygienic/protective casing of some kind. I myself sport a fashionable beard-and-hair net, polyester-blend lab coat, and stretchy booties.

Past the rooms of workers shuttling racks of swaying sausages, beyond massive plastic tubs filled with shrink-wrapped hunks of beef, and separate from a Dr. Seussian contraption casually referred to as the “hot dog roller coaster” sits the company’s research and development kitchen.

It’s in this room that Dietz & Watson has worked to engineer and deploy what it claims is a revolution in deli meat processing. Its executives say the method significantly reduces, if not eliminates, the potential formation of nitrosamines—the technical name for the unstable compounds that have been linked to cancer, heart problems, and diabetes.

Through a combination of what the company calls “alternative curing methods” and controlled cooking temperature, Dietz & Watson will soon sell a nearly complete line of “clean” deli meat products engineered to mitigate the formation of nitrosamines.

Louis Eni Jr., president and CEO of Dietz & Watson, told me during my visit that his company overhauled its curing process because of growing consumer demand. Eni, too, is wearing a lab coat, but no booties over his dress shoes. He’s worked for the company for more than 50 years and is the kind of guy you imagine would make an excellent grandfather—dark brown eyes behind thin-rimmed glasses, always ready with an anecdote. He’s almost jovial. And very convincing.

“There’s a big push—and I agree with the push—[against] processed foods. You know, highly processed, ultra-processed foods,” Eni says. “We need to desperately make sure that we message properly so that consumers don’t associate what’s been for years called processed meats as ultra-processed foods.” Eni says that, instead, what Dietz & Watson makes is “multistep prepared meats.” That phrase doesn’t really roll off the tongue either, but as I tour the facility, I begin to understand what he’s talking about.

Early in Dietz & Watson’s history, the company used synthetic nitrates and nitrites to cure its meats, and the link between those lab-made ingredients and dangerous nitrosamines has become a frequent target of health research and the anti-cold cut cabal. Now the company uses all-natural additives to preserve the shelf life of the product and prevent bacterial growth, including botulism. (Natural curing agents may produce nitrosamines, too, but more on that soon.)

Dietz & Watson’s curing process begins with raw, pre-butchered cuts of meat, like the kind you might find at the butcher shop. Those cuts undergo a marinade stage, in which hundreds of microneedles inject the meat with a salt solution that contains its natural curing ingredients: celery juice powder and acerola cherry powder.

“We found adding cherry powder helps stabilize color a lot, and it helps in controlling the nitrous elements that come out of the cure,” says Gregory Yingling, operations and procurement at Dietz & Watson. The celery powder, which is naturally high in nitrites, helps cure the meat, ensuring food safety and quality, he says. Neither ingredient tastes like anything that would throw off the flavor of a ham sandwich. The ocher-colored celery powder is earthy, almost like cumin. The cherry powder is faintly tart.

Other deli meat manufacturers use natural curing agents—and even celery and cherry powders—but Yingling says his team has discovered the ideal minimal amounts to cure products that have few to no nitrites remaining in the final product.

The salt in Dietz & Watson’s marinade cures the meat too, but it also acts as an abrasive. That’s important because after the meat marinates for at least 24 hours, powerful vacuums transport the cuts into cement truck–like drums that tumble everything until tenderized. The abrasive salt, through tumbling, creates a slightly tacky texture on the meat. “We call [that texture] ‘meat glue,’ ” says Yingling, pointing to a plastic tub of semi-macerated marinated chicken breasts. “That tackiness—that’s myosin. That’s the protein that the salt has brought to the surface.” The production line then takes that sticky meat and bundles everything together in a net, which helps mold deli meat products into the uniform shape consumers have come to expect.

“Some competitors grind up the meat, suck it into [a tumbler], put a bunch of marinade in it, and spin it for 30 minutes,” says Yingling. Unlike synthetic curing ingredients, which dissolve in a salt solution, natural ingredients like celery powder can require longer marinating periods. That extra time means less efficiency, says Yingling, but it’s critical for ensuring a safer product. Translation: less risk of nitrosamines in the final product.

But heat, too, may lead to the formation of nitrosamines—even in deli meat processed with natural curing agents. Nitrogen compounds are unstable and combust when temperatures rise. (This is also why you’ve likely heard that grilling or frying cured meats like bacon is especially dangerous.) Although scientists haven’t yet pinpointed the exact temperature at which nitrosamines start to form, they agree that lower temps are less risky. Yingling’s team has found the same: Controlling the heat also helps prevent nitrosamines from showing up in cooked meat.

Eni guides me into a cavernous room that houses what can only be described as a metal bathtub the size of a shipping container. “The water’s about 175, 180 degrees,” he says. “It’s this very even cooking medium where the temperature comes up evenly.” As soon as the meat is done, off it plunges into an ice bath to prevent overcooking.

After chilling, and depending on the product, Dietz & Watson’s meats are dispersed elsewhere around the facility. Some go into a slow-smoking chamber, others undergo further seasoning, and some fly off for slicing and packaging. And, at some point, some products find their way to the meat lab, where Yingling and his team will run tests to ensure that the meat contains as few residual nitrites as possible.

Dietz & Watson isn’t the first company to swap synthetic curing agents for natural ones. In fact, in the early 1990s, Eni’s company actually helped create uncured deli meats and hot dogs for Applegate Farms, which was then an organic-focused boutique brand. (Quick but important side note: Deli meat labels in the U.S. can carry the word “uncured” as long as no synthetic curing agents were used in the processing. And yes, even though they are still technically cured.)

Back then, Dietz & Watson used a vegetable-based natural curing agent, Yingling says, but not cherry powder, which has the ability to prevent nitrosamine formation in the final product. Eni says the consumer response to Applegate products was exciting. In the early 2000s, Dietz & Watson began experimenting with—and eventually launched—its own brand of uncured ham.

Plenty of competitors followed. In 2006, Hormel launched its Natural Choice line of cold cuts, free of preservatives, artificial colors, and artificial flavors. (The line was relaunched in 2015, and it includes ham, chicken, turkey, and salami.) Oscar Mayer expanded its Deli Fresh line, with no artificial preservatives or flavorings, in 2014. Applegate (now owned by Hormel Foods) still sells uncured bacon, breakfast sausage without added nitrites or nitrates, and uncured ham deli meat.

All these brands use some type of alternative curing method—often a form of celery and sea salt. Many of them tout language like “uncured,” “no artificial flavors or preservatives,” and the ever-present “no nitrates or nitrites added.” Yet despite their health halo, “uncured” deli meat contained a similar amount of potentially carcinogenic compounds when compared with traditionally cured products, revealed third-party tests from Consumer Reports.

Dietz & Watson insists that its new products are different. Yingling says that they’ve learned since 2022 to use just enough of their natural curing agents to minimize and, in some cases, eliminate the potential nitrosamine conversion. By next year, 99 percent of Dietz & Watson’s deli meat will follow its new standards. The goal: “as clean a label as possible,” Eni says. I asked Eni whether it was okay for my daughter to eat their ham every day. “Every day,” he told me with a smile and a nod.

I was still torn over whether Dietz & Watson’s “clean” ham was lipstick on a pig or a viable healthy choice for my family and myself. I’ll admit that I was feeling better about deli meat, but I was still leaving it off the weekly shopping list because I had more questions—ones I knew only scientists who studied this stuff could answer.

Slicing the Risk

WITHIN THE PAST decade, scientists have started to unpack something interesting about nitrosamines: They’re always in you. “Nitrosamines don’t only form in the factory or the frying pan—they also form inside your own body,” says Norman Hord, PhD, RD, the director of the School of Human Environmental Sciences at the University of Arkansas. “When you swallow nitrate from any food, some of it is converted into nitrite, and the acid in your stomach turns that into the same reactive chemicals that build nitrosamines.”

This is true even of vegetables, especially arugula, spinach, beets, and, yes, celery, which are all loaded with nitrate. Consider that researchers have even found nitrosamines in dairy products and booze, and you may want to start swearing off anything processed.

But hold up: “We’re still pinning down how much dietary risk [nitrosamines] carry at real-world amounts,” Hord says. “That argues for sensible moderation now, not panic.” While the science unfolds, experts say there’s a simple way forward to better health.

Gunter Kuhnle is a professor of food and nutritional sciences at the University of Reading in the U.K. He’s studied nitrosamines extensively, and he told me there’s a two-pronged approach we can take to reduce risk.

The first prong, obviously, is eating deli meat that contains few to no nitrates or nitrites—or eating less of the stuff that does. What’s more, if you’re cooking deli meat, like sizzling ham for a breakfast sandwich, doing so over low heat can help prevent nitrosamines from forming.

The second is eating deli meat along with fruits and vegetables. Because there’s also a decent amount of science behind how certain antioxidants can prevent the formation of nitrosamines, both during food production stages and in the digestive system, says Kuhnle.

A 2025 study found that people who were overweight or had obesity and ate a diet high in nitrite-rich vegetables (again: arugula, spinach, celery, beets) reduced their risk of cardio-metabolic health problems, likely because of the vegetables’ favorable effect on blood pressure, fasting glucose, and cholesterol levels.

“The same thing is true if you consume high amounts of nitrite with high amounts of fiber. It also reduces the amount of nitrosamines that form,” Kuhnle says. (It probably goes without saying, but deli meat contains no fiber and paltry amounts of antioxidants.) “So even without changing the products, changing the diet can already do a lot of good,” he says. Think of pairing deli meats with high-fiber fruits and vegetables as a sort of “nitrosamine offset,” like how rich people who fly private purchase “carbon offsets,” such as funding tree planting, to ease their guilty consciences.

While I reported this article, I wasn’t buying ham or eating hoagies. On my trip down to Dietz & Watson headquarters, I briefly considered stopping by DiCostanza’s for an Italian hoagie, but the itinerary was tight and it also felt antithetical. Nitrosamines had scared me off. Plus, the USDA does not currently set limits, nor does it test for amounts of natural curing agents—like celery juice powder or cherry powder. This leaves deli meat companies to largely self-police the safety of their uncured products.

But to hear from Kuhnle that I could occasionally enjoy deli meat, and even give it to my daughter if we were eating a fiber-rich diet—well, that seemed like a fine compromise.

“I always think that the big problem in nutrition is trying to find sort of the magic bullet,” he says. “The only dietary recommendation I know that most people in nutrition can agree on is the idea of a balanced diet”—which, Kuhnle stresses, is a varied diet: fruits and vegetables, beans and legumes, fish and seafood, and, yes, even some deli meat now and then. “This is very, very boring—the one thing which will never get you any headlines,” Kuhnle says. But a balanced and varied diet works.

Dietz & Watson’s reformulated products won’t start hitting grocery stores until around the time this article comes out and, fine, okay, I’ll eventually make the switch to its ham for my daughter. But when I pack her a ham and cheese sandwich, I’ll also swap our usual whole wheat sandwich bread for a brand that has more fiber per slice. And instead of Ritz crackers, I’ll pack her some kind of fruit—raspberries, grapes, blueberries—on the side. Maybe someday I’ll even throw in a beet and see what happens.

But I’m not sure when I’ll eat a hoagie again. That’s blasphemy coming from a guy who lives deep in Wawa country, I know. Instead, next time a craving strikes, maybe I’ll make my own hoagie at home. With just a few slices of deli meat, a ton of vegetables, and a great big salad on the side.