Product description:

Sodium Nitrate (preservative 251)
Sodium nitrate is a type of salt (NaNO3) which has long been used as an ingredient in solid rocket propellants, as well as in glass and pottery enamel, and as a food preservative (Meat Production), and has been mined extensively for those purposes. It is also variously known as caliche, Chile saltpeter, saltpeter, saltpetre and soda niter.

The world's largest natural deposits of caliche ore were in the Atacama desert of Chile. Chile still has the largest reserves of caliche, with active mines in such locations as Pedro de Valdivia, Maria Elena and Pampa Blanca.

Sodium Nitrite (preservative 250)
Sodium nitrite, with chemical formula NaNO2, is used as a color fixative and preservative in meats and fish. When pure, it is a white to slight yellowish crystalline powder. It's very soluble in water and is hygroscopic. It's also slowly oxidized by oxygen in the air to sodium nitrate, NaNO3.

It is also used in manufacturing diazo dyes and nitroso compounds. In textiles it is used for dyeing and printing fabrics and bleaching fibers. In photography as a laboratory reagent and a corrosion inhibitor.

Sodium nitrite also has been used in human and veterinary medicine as a vasodilator, a bronchodilator, an intestinal relaxant or a laxative, and an antidote for cyanide poisoning. .