Posted by Larry Hoover on January 4, 2005, at 8:51:28
In reply to Re: more MAOI diet questions - pepperoni issue, posted by SLS on January 4, 2005, at 2:15:53
> > I have read a study (and saw it referred to on PB) about the safety of pepperoni. I've also seen it placed on safe lists for MAOIs. Someone on the MAOI Yahoo board has been telling everyone that it's safe to consume. She's been stating that as a certainty.
>
> The only food that I have ever had a severe hypertensive reaction to is pepperoni. It didn't take much. I ingested no more than a couple of slices on a pizza. The plain cheese pizza from the same restaurant never bothered me. I experienced the classic occipital headache - pounding at the base of the skull in the back. For me, it is a certainty that pepperoni is on my foods to avoid list.
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> I was taking Parnate 60mg + desipramine 150mg at the time.
>
>
> - ScottAbout pepperoni. More than you ever wanted to know. Probably.
Traditionally produced or air-dried pepperoni is purposefully allowed to be contaminated with bacteria from the air. In fact, the meat mixture is sometimes left standing for a period of time to ensure full colonization. When the meat mixture is packed into natural casings, fermentation by-products and the salts added during blending combine to produce a sausage that is fully preserved. Because this process depends on wild-type bacteria and yeast, and because the casing is oxygen permeable, the fermentation products cover a wide range of compounds. Dominant among them is lactic acid, produced by an anaerobe. This gives the sausage a bit of a bite. The air-drying/aging process takes many weeks.
Producers which have been in the business for some time tend to develop "pepperoni friendly" levels of these microbes on the premises, but each producer might have a slightly different mixture or genetic strain of the fermenting critters. This leads to a bit of snobbery around the "vintage" of certain sausages.
Modern commercial pepperoni, the cheap stuff, uses a different method entirely. Rather than depending on wild-type bacteria, they use a commercial frozen starter. Fermentation is done inside plastic (air-sealed) casings, and occurs within twenty-four hours. Little, if any, air drying occurs.
This means that the two products are the same in name only. Air-dried sausage has been exposed to the activity of aerobic bacteria, yielding tyramine. Commercial sausage has not. Air-dried sausage is always in real casings, producing an irregular shape. Commercial sausage is always perfectly round. Air-dried sausage also shrinks irregularly, which further distorts the shape. Air-dried sausage tends to have a moderate to low moisture content, making it a little chewy. Commercial sausage has a much higher moisture content, making it soft and even mushy. Air-dried sausage requires no refrigeration. Commercial pepperoni does.
I think the confusion about pepperoni stems from this: two distinct products, the same in name only. Commercial chain pizzerias are almost certainly going to use the cheaper commercial product available to them. But when you start moving upscale, your risk will increase that they use an air-cured sausage.
One caveat: Cheap commercial pepperoni *can* develop tyramine, depending on how it is handled after it is produced. Although the fresh product has zero tyramine, the longer it is in the distribution chain, or the more handled it has been (e.g. pre-slicing), the greater the possibility that a wee beastie that eats protein and poops out tyramine is in residence.
Lar
P.S. The last paragraph applies to mozzarella, too.
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:436844
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050103/msgs/437582.html