The sausages are guaranteed presence on the supermarket shelves. Fast to prepare and appreciated by both children and adults are for breakfasts, makeshift dinners or even as ingredients on stews. But the truth is that not all sausages offer the same quality, and the difference is mainly in the ingredients, so it must be aware before consumption.
The journalist and disclosure of Nutrition Polish Katarzyna Bosacka, very followed on social networks, recently highlighted which sausages deserve a place in the shopping cart and which one should leave on the shelf.
Your advice is direct: Always read the list of ingredients. It may seem obvious, but there is rarely carefully what really comes to the frying pan, according to the Spanish digital newspaper HuffPost.
Example of good choices
Bosacka points out as a reference to the typical ham sausages, available in many chains. It explains, they are “natural products, with good ingredients, no preservatives or added phosphates”. These are options that should be privileged: made from quality meat and with a short and clear composition.
What should be avoided
On the opposite side, the expert warns of cheaper smoked chicken sausages, whose main ingredient is 55% mechanically separated meat (msm). This base joins, according to the same source, chicken skin, starch, semolha and stabilizers.
It also recalls that, according to European legislation, mechanically separate meat is not considered meat, but a byproduct consisting of remains of connective tissue and cartilage. It is cheaper for industry, but significantly reduces the nutritional value of the food.
How to recognize a good sausage
The golden rule is simple: a good sausage should have at least 85 to 90% of meat, being ideal when it reaches 100%. In the list of ingredients they should only include meat, water, salt and natural spices.
The shorter and more clear the label, the better, according to the. On the contrary, we should be suspicious of products that include long lists of stabilizers, flavor or reckoning.
Sausage consumption in Portugal
In Portugal, fresh pork sausages remain the most sought after, although chicken and turkey versions have gained space because they are seen as lighter options. Still, many packaging include mechanically and additive separate meat, so reading the ingredient list is decisive to realize whether we are facing a quality product or just a cheap and poorly nutritious alternative.
Consumer protection associations, such as Deco Proteste, stress that the difference between a good and a bad sausage is on labeling.
The choice should always privilege those with the highest percentage of meat and less additives, remembering that, even in these cases, consumption should be moderate because it is processed meat. As Bosacka underlines, “the difference between a good and a bad sausage is in the label.”
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