Nitrate and nitrite, which readily produce N-nitrosamines by reaction with secondary amines, are widely distributed in natural products such as vegetables and cereals, and are also used as a color fixation in meat products or fish roes. This experiment was carried out to determine the contents of nitrate and nitrite in foods such as fermented sea foods and fresh vegetables purchased at markets in Korea. The contents of nitrate were $0.74sim13.81;ppm$ for fermented sea foods and $4.0sim1,572.5;ppm$for fresh vegetables. As for vegetables, the nitrate levels of edible herbs were relatively higher than those of greens, fruits and rootcrops. The nitrite contents in fermented demoisells(Chromis notatus), fermented shrimp, fermented small squid, fermented anchovy and salted Alaska pollack roe were very little, while those in fermented hairtail and fermented entrails were not detected. As for vegetables, nitrite levels found for cabbage and lettuce were relatively as high as 3.8 ppm and $2.5sim2.9;ppm$, respectively, but were not detected in Korean cabbage, green perilla leaf, pepper, garlic and burdock. Of vegetables, the nitrate values in the outer part of Korean cabbage, stems of water cress and leaves of green onion were higher than in the other parts. Little variety of the nitrate levels were found during 4 days storage. In the comparison of low temperature storage and room temperature storage, lettuce, pumpkin and spinach contained higher levels of nitrate at low temperature storage, while eggplant and green onion, at room temperature storage.