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In food, nitrites are commonly used as food additives in the processing of meat and other foods. However, long-term intake of foods with excessive nitrites can cause direct and chronic harm to the human body, making the detection of nitrates particularly important. After precipitating proteins and removing fats from the sample, under weak acid conditions, nitrites react with sulfanilic acid to form a diazonium compound, which then couples with N-(1-naphthyl)ethylenediamine to form a magenta dye, having a characteristic absorption peak at 540nm. The nitrite content can be calculated accordingly.