I use cure salt (Prague powder, pink salt, cure 4), especially for ground meats, but I have never seen jerky last over two weeks so probably don't need it. I would make sure the ground meat was definitely finished and store in fridge. Those cure packets like nesco, contain sodium nitrite if i am correct. As for recipes, i like brown sugar, soy, garlic type recipes but you could just coat with black pepper, your imagination is the limit and great recipes are plentiful. I love charcuterie. Since you are ingesting the sodium nitrite it is a very very small amount that goes in it. I have posted sodium nitrite guides before, but I will look for it again.