# Functional and Clean Label Dry Fermented Meat Products:
## 3 Bioactive Compounds from Plant-Based Food as \"Clean Label\" Ingredients in Fermented Sausages  
The so-called \"clean label\" trend is one of fastest growing initiatives in term of food production aiming to enhance the health quality of foods. Although this concept has not yet been defined in food law, it is commonly used in the context of food with few and recognizable ingredients. The meat industry has an important challenge in the development of meat products produced according to the clean label trend, as meat products belong to the food group that is customarily produced with numerous functional additives [29; 31; 56]. Within the EU legislation, there is a list of permitted additives and their maximum level of use depending on the type of product [57]. According to this regulation, the list of permitted additives for meat products is long and include antimicrobials, antioxidants, and texutrizers as the most used ones, but also some other additives (such as colorants, acidity regulators, and stabilizers). Although all the additives employed in meat products elaboration are considered safe within the established limits by the food safety authorities, the consumers perceive these additives as unhealthy and expect their elimination from the recipe of meat products [29]. The subject of increasing scientific controversy in the context of the impact on human health are compounds such as nitrites and nitrates that are commonly used as the main additives in the production of fermented meat products [58; 59]. Nitrates and nitrites are authorized as additives in meat processing in the European Union under Commission Regulation (EU) No 1129/2011 at the maximum amount of 150 mg/kg; however, the addition of sodium nitrate is allowed only in uncooked meat products [57]. There are several reasons for using these compounds to enhance the meat products quality: participation in the formation and stabilization of red color named cured-meat color; inhibition of the growth of undesirable bacteria (especially _Clostridium botulinum_ and its toxin); delay of the lipid oxidation; participation in the formation of the meat product flavor [6; 60; 61; 62; 63; 64; 65]. The mechanisms of these interactions described in the literature are presented in Table 2. From a different point of view, nitrites and nitrates are the subject of increasing scientific and consumers controversy in the context of the impact on human health as an increase in the content of reactive forms of nitrogen can result in a harmful process called nitrosation stress. This process can cause damage to cellular structures such as proteins, membranes, lipids, and DNA [59]. Some scientific evidence suggests a link between the consumption of foods containing nitrates and the risk of cancer including colorectal cancer, thyroid cancer, breast cancer, renal cell carcinoma, gastric cancer, and esophageal cancer [66; 67; 68; 69; 70; 71]. The clean label trend in food production is very often involved with using plant-based ingredients/additives. In recent years, several studies in this area have been carried out with fermented meat products, mainly sausages [21; 22; 51; 72]. The fundamental criterion for selecting an ingredient from plants as a component of a meat product without nitrates/nitrites is to show the same functions of nitrates. The best results are obtained for those that show both antimicrobial and antioxidant properties, additionally having a positive effect on the color, taste, and smell of products and their structure. According to [PERSON] et al. [73] the inclusion or not of nitrite/nitrate depends on considering two crucial risks--the eventual formation of nitrosamines known as carcinogenic compounds to humans or the eventual out-growth of pathogens. The specificity of the production of fermented meats poses a high risk of _Listeria monocytogenes_ contamination, which is the main frequently detected pathogen in dry fermented sausages [77].