Navigating The Minefield Of Processed Meat
Meat that has been flavoured, re-formed or otherwise added to might taste good, but there are important things to bear in mind when serving it to young children
- by Nigel Denby
Read ‘processed meat’ and your head might fill with images of Turkey Twizzlers, smoked bacon or re-formed ham. And you’d be right – all of these meats go through technical processing in a factory. However, you’d also be right if your thoughts turned to a perfectly cooked piece of organic fillet steak from a restaurant or your own grill.
Processing meat simply means altering it in some way from its natural state – that might mean just cooking it as in the case of the fillet, or it could be re-forming it into a new shape, flavouring, colouring, preserving it, or adding other ingredients to bulk it out.
So what about serving processed meat to young children? Are there any rules to follow? Or can those dreaded Twizzlers go back on the menu?
Given Jamie Oliver’s high-profile attack on the Turkey Twizzler, you’d need to be a brave or foolish provider to let parents know you were serving them to children. But are products like this really nutritionally inferior to regular fresh meat? Should we demonise them, while happily serving bacon, ham, sausages and other delicatessen meats to the under-fives?
To understand the issues, it’s helpful to look at exactly what goes into processed meat, and how it differs from the unprocessed variety.
Changing shape
Some meat products undergo a process of ‘re-forming’. This usually takes place when cuts or pieces of meat don’t look very appealing, or are too small or oddly shaped to be saleable. They are processed into a more recognisable shape – a nugget, a chicken slice or, indeed, a ‘twizzle’.
The pieces of unsightly meat contain much the same nutrition as any other piece, but they are often combined with skin and fat to bulk out the product and make it cheaper.
While this doesn’t sound very nice, it’s also what happens with some minced meat, and with cold cuts like hasslet, corned beef or frankfurters.
Many sausages will also have all kinds of animal parts you might prefer to avoid if you saw them au naturel. But, once they’re minced up and formed into a familiar banger shape, we happily tuck in.
Essentially, meat is meat – it will have roughly the same nutritional value whether it’s a piece of prime muscle, like a fillet, or a less attractive part, like a tongue or an ear.
The fat content can alter the value, and of course fat can be naturally present or added to meat. In some products, like the Twizzlers, a lot of fat and skin is added.
So, unless a processed meat product states that it is made from whole pieces of meat, it’s likely to contain extra bits and pieces you’d probably be inclined to avoid.
Adding flavour
Many ingredients can be added to meat to enhance its flavour – from commonly used seasonings to artificial flavourings or e-numbers. It’s important to point out that e-numbers have been rigorously tested for safety and only after expert assessment are they allowed to be added to food. They are not bad for health but you may prefer to keep them to a minimum.
One of the ingredients most commonly added to meat to boost its flavour is salt. Originally used as a preservative in cured meats like ham and bacon, salting or brining involves soaking meat in a salty solution. The salt is absorbed, which makes it more difficult for bacteria to grow. Over time we’ve become accustomed to salty tasting foods, so salt is now added to most processed meats to make it more appealing.
Herbs and spices are also added to increase or alter flavour – think that smoky flavour in chorizo sausage, which comes from smoked paprika, or the garlic and pepper added to other continental sausage, like pepperoni. These natural ingredients aren’t harmful – but they are strong flavours that may not be popular amongst the under-fives!
In the early years
One problem with processed meat is that too much salt is directly linked with high blood pressure. Young children’s kidneys are unable to filter salt as efficiently as an adult’s can, so where we should have no more than 6g salt a day, children should only have a maximum of 2g between the age of one and three years, and 3g between three and five years.
It’s really easy for a toddler to consume their entire day’s (or more) allowance in one meal if salty meats like bacon, sausages or ham are served, or if they frequently eat processed meats where salt has been added for flavour.
The examples below (see more at actionsalt.org.uk) show just how salty some processed meats can be, especially once you start to combine them with other processed ingredients:
Bacon: between 2.0g and 6.8g salt per 100g Sausages: between 0.3g and 1g salt per sausage Children’s meals in restaurants: between 3g and 9g salt per meal Pepperoni pizza: 5.8g salt per 100g Stuffed crust sausage and pepperoni pizza: 13g salt per 100g
Never forget, too, that toddlers’ taste preferences are established in their early years, so serving salty foods too often will encourage a preference for salt that will be difficult to change.
Essentially you need to think about how often you include processed meats in the menu:
As a general rule, you can serve bacon, ham and sausages once each per week.
In terms of other traditional cured meats like salami, chorizo and pepperoni, the same guide could be used – so once a week for these meats is fine if you’d like to serve them.
As far as processed meats like nuggets, Twizzlers and other re-formed or reconstituted meats, there’s no real guidance on how often they can be served, so it’s up to you to decide. If you do choose to serve these sorts of products, select brands with the highest meat content.
Of course, you could always serve chicken nuggets on your menu with no added salt at all. Try the recipe below – cooking from scratch is by far the best way to ensure you keep a lid on added salt.
Nigel Denby is a registered dietitian and founder of Grub4Life.
