Oh the old nitrite scare again. Do you know what celery juice (the usual substitute for sodium nitrite) turns into while sitting in the "fermentation" solution? Yep you guessed it. Sodium Nitrite.
Your body turns Sodium Nitrite; which is turned into Nitric Oxide, which relaxes your blood vessels that lowers your blood pressure.
You have to eat a butt load of bacon, ham, lunch meats, hot dogs, sausages, etc. to increase your chance of cancer. No one I know eats that much of any one thing.
"During the curing process, the nitrates in celery powder break down into nitrites and provide all the benefits of botulism prevention, bright pink color and that delicious cured flavor. For full disclosure, the USDA does not consider celery powder or any other "natural" form of nitrate to be a curing or preserving agent but rather a flavoring agent. "