![\"Coyote](\"https:\/\/www.diaryofanadi.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/coyote.jpg\" "\\"Coyote")
A few weeks ago I bought some Potassium Nitrate (also known as saltpetre) from Amazon. I needed it because I am going to try my hand at curing my own bacon and saltpetre is used as a preservative in this process.<\/p>\nA few weeks ago I bought some Potassium Nitrate (also known as saltpetre) from Amazon. I needed it because I am going to try my hand at curing my own bacon and saltpetre is used as a preservative in this process.<\/p>\n
To anyone who might not know, saltpetre is also one of the three ingredients in the traditional gunpowder recipe. I was surprised to be able to buy it, but happy that I could get hold of this food grade material.<\/p>\n
Yesterday I got one of Amazon\u2019s frequent \u201cwe thought you might like\u201d emails. The contents of these are based on what you\u2019ve purchased previously. So imagine my surprise when I saw that the suggestions included:<\/p>\n
That Himalayan thing was a red herring. But when I clicked on the Potassium Nitrate link out of interest (my 500g pack cost more), I discovered that it wasn\u2019t food grade – and then I saw at the bottom of the page the following related items:<\/p>\n
In fact, 10 pages of items specifically for making fireworks and\u2026 well, things that go BANG! And the joyful proclamation that the \u201cfollowing items are frequently bought together\u201d.<\/p>\n
I remember from my school days that very fine sulphur and Willow charcoal are key items for making fast-burning gunpowder (along with saltpetre). Other oxidising agents make it burn faster, and magnesium makes it burn brighter. Guess what the \u201cfrequently bought\u201d collections included!<\/p>\n
And probably the funniest thing is that the email starts with:<\/p>\n
Are you looking for something in our Herbs, Spices & Seasonings store? If so, you might be interested in these items.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The Potassium Nitrate it links to is NOT identified as food grade, doesn\u2019t actually fall\u00a0 under any of the headings \u201cherbs, spices, or seasonings\u201d even if it was food grade, and is being sold by a garden store<\/strong>.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ll be selling weapons grade Plutonium in the toys section next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A few weeks ago I bought some Potassium Nitrate (also known as saltpetre) from Amazon. I needed it because I am going to try my hand at curing my own bacon and saltpetre is used as a preservative in this process. To anyone who might not know, saltpetre is also one of the three ingredients […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funny-related"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t