Recently, the fried sausages fried by vendors who set up stalls at the school gate when they went to school have become "net red" nostalgic foods, many people think that "starch intestines" have the taste of childhood, "the more starchy the better, but where there is a little meat do not like to eat", in the well-known video website B station also set off a "copy starch intestine" video creation boom.
Everyone likes the soft and tender taste of "starch sausage", but in fact, the implication is that ham sausage is "junk food".
Many people are educated by their elders from an early age: ham sausages and lunch meat are made of starch, contain a lot of additives, belong to junk food, and cannot be eaten. However, are lunch meat and ham sausages really as bad as everyone says?
#01 Ham sausage, lunch meat are all starch?
According to the provisions of China's national standard, ham sausage is a meat enema product made of fresh or frozen livestock meat, poultry meat and fish meat as the main raw material, which is salted, stirred, chopped (or emulsified), poured into plastic casings, and sterilized by high temperature.
Lunch meat is a kind of canned compressed minced meat, usually made of pork as a raw material, according to a certain proportion of starch and spices processed.
It can be seen from the standard requirements that ham sausage and lunch meat still belong to meat products, and the main raw material is still meat. It's just that ham sausages can use other meats, while lunch meat can only use pork.
Many people say that they now see lunch meat with chicken. This is actually normal. According to the latest international standards, lunch meat can indeed be used with pork and poultry.
Both ham sausage and lunch meat have some starch in them, which is related to the processing process. The combination of added starch and meat and water will make the ham sausage and lunch meat have better water retention and the taste will be more tender.
So how much starch does ham sausage and lunch meat contain? According to China's national standard, the protein content in ham intestines is not less than 10%, and the amount of starch is not more than 10%; and the amount of meat in the canned canned lunch meat and ham lunch meat shall not be less than 80%, and the amount of starch shall not exceed 7%.
Several "starch intestines" that everyone respects on the Internet, most of the first place in the ingredient list are meat, and starch is ranked behind. Therefore, even if it is a "starchy intestine", it is more meat than starch, which may disappoint netizens who "do not like to eat any meat".
#02 Additives? Are they all preservatives?
In addition to feeling more starchy, many people also think that lunch meat and ham sausage are "more preservatives, no nutrition".
Theoretically, ham sausages can be made as long as there is meat and salt, but in actual production, taking into account factors such as taste and cost, additives such as preservatives, edible gums and flavors and fragrances will be added appropriately.
Among them, everyone is most worried about preservatives, especially nitrites. In fact, the requirements for nitrite in China's meat food standards are very strict (≤ 30mg/kg), and cannot be added casually.
Moreover, there are also benefits to using nitrite, which inhibits the growth of Botulinum toxin and prevents the production of botulinum toxin.
Therefore, as long as it is a qualified product of a regular manufacturer, there is no need to worry about safety.
#03没有垃圾食品, there is only the way to eat garbage
From the perspective of nutrition, food itself is not "garbage" and "health", nutrition science still emphasizes that "there is no junk food, only garbage eating". Whether a person eats nutritiously and healthily depends on whether the food combination is reasonable.
As a kind of meat product, lunch meat and ham sausage can provide us with rich high-quality protein, but also a lot of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients, not without nutrition.
In addition, ham sausage and lunch meat also have the advantages of being easy to preserve and easy to eat, and can play a great advantage for people in disaster-stricken areas such as floods and earthquakes.
It should be reminded that many people now in order to reproduce the "roadside stall grilled sausage", the main production method is fried, compared to the "starch sausage", eat less fried food is more important to pay attention to.
Source: Beijing Youth Daily, People's Daily