What kind of meat is used in the 2 yuan grilled sausage? Test 9 types to tell you the answer!

As a meat food that is "popular in the streets and alleys", grilled sausages can be found almost everywhere in shopping malls, convenience stores, school gates, tourist attractions...

Because of this, everyone is really worried about grilled sausages: "What kind of meat is the sausage made of?", "What additives are added?", "Pork is so expensive now, can I eat a sausage that costs 1 or 2 yuan?"...

This time, our Dad Review sent out a "Food Lovers Squad" and went to a famous local scenic spot, a well-known night market, a blue convenience store, and the gate of a primary school to buy 5 different types of grilled sausages.

At the same time, we also purchased 4 popular grilled sausages online. The purchase information of 9 samples is as follows:

The sample fee for this evaluation is 490 yuan + the testing fee is 25920 yuan = 26410 yuan. What is the "true face" of these sausages? Let's take a look at it together——

As a meat product, are there any bad meats added to grilled sausages? Will eating them cause diarrhea?

As the most concerned issue among fans, we first tested the total lean meat content of 9 types of grilled sausages. The results are as follows:

Note: The pork and chicken content is determined based on pure lean meat, excluding ingredients such as pig skin, fat, chicken skin, and chicken frame mud (these will also contribute part of the meat content).

Unexpectedly, the total meat content of 3 offline sausages exceeded 50%, which were purchased from a scenic spot, a night market (Taiwanese sausage stall) and a blue convenience store. It seems that roadside snacks are not all "cheap goods"~

The grilled sausages in scenic spots and night markets are both priced at 10 yuan each, and the main source of meat is pork; while the one sold in the blue convenience store is only 5 yuan each, and the main source of meat is chicken.

From this point of view, the saying "you get what you pay for" is really true. Would you rather spend half the money on chicken sausage or double the money on pork sausage?

Bought online, only the No. 6 sausage has a total meat content of more than 50%. This sausage costs 6.7 yuan per piece, which is considered high-priced among online products, but the pork content is comparable to that bought at the night market (Taiwanese sausage stall), so it can be regarded as a low-end version of the night market sausage.

In addition, we also discovered a magical phenomenon: the actual meat content of all the grilled sausages that looked long and thin with reddish meat was not high, and the meat content of No. 7 grilled sausage was even as low as 4.39%.

This type of sausage is usually made from chicken, and the meat content is not too high. Because chicken is white meat, in order to simulate the red color of pork, manufacturers usually add pigments (such as red yeast rice and allura red).

However, it is simulated after all, so the color of this grilled sausage is still redder than the pork grilled sausage, which is easier to see from the appearance.

The grilled sausages on the roadside are always sizzling and look very appetizing. So is their fat content particularly high? Will I get fat if I eat too much? The results of the fat content of 9 grilled sausages are as follows:

From the results, it seems that the sausage with the highest fat content is the sausage from the night market (Taiwanese sausage stall). It seems that it not only has a lot of lean meat, but also a lot of fat, and it is all real meat (and fat).

I wonder if this fat content will discourage you?

According to our actual measurements, the average fat content of these sausages is similar to that of most luncheon meats, which is not too low.

But don't worry too much, although the fat content of grilled sausages is not low, the advantage is that the amount of each sausage is relatively small. If calculated at 50g per sausage, their fat content is roughly as follows:

Note: A triangular cream cake weighs 100g and contains about 13.9g of fat. Data source: Mint Health.

From this point of view, the fat content of a grilled sausage is not that high, and it is not a big problem to eat it occasionally.

But I know that many friends like to have a cup of milk tea in their left hand and a sausage in their right hand when they go shopping. The fat content is a bit high. Next time, just choose one. Homemade food will give you freedom!

There is not much meat in the sausage, so what is it made of? Many friends said it is made of starch. Some friends even said "I like the starch taste" and "I don't like it without starch".

Does that mean the cheaper the sausage, the higher the starch/soy protein content? Let's take a look at the actual test results:

Judging from the results, the sausages purchased from the night market (grilled cold noodles stall), the sausages at the entrance of the elementary school, and the No. 7 sausages purchased online have relatively higher starch/soy protein content.

Correspondingly, they are also relatively cheap in their respective purchasing channels. It seems that the proportion of starch/soy protein in cheaper grilled sausages is indeed higher.

What was quite surprising was that the sausages purchased from the night market (Taiwanese sausage stall) had no detectable starch and soy protein, and the meat content was not low. This 10 yuan was worth it!

In addition, the starch and soy protein content of the 9 grilled sausages are not too high, and are far from the starch sausages that everyone talks about.

Starch can help shape the sausage, retain water, and reduce costs. Some sausages do add a proper amount of starch.

But manufacturers will not add too much, otherwise it will greatly affect the taste. The same is true for soy protein.

Swipe right to see more

In order to dispel everyone's doubts, Wei's father specially made a pure starch sausage using starch, soy protein, red yeast rice, a drop of fragrance and other food additives.

After baking, the appearance looks 90% similar, and my colleagues all expressed their desire to try it.

But after taking a bite, I found that it was not as delicious as I imagined, and it was quite different from the grilled sausage with more meat.

So you can rest assured that the manufacturers are not stupid. If the product doesn't taste good and can't be sold, it's useless to reduce the cost.

What's more, there is another raw material that is cheaper than starch, and that is water. All grilled sausages contain some water, some of which comes with the meat, and some of which is added by the merchants.

Take No. 1 and No. 4 sausages as examples. Their meat content differs by nearly 3 times, but their water content is similar. The extra water in No. 4 sausage is added extra.

Although grilled sausages taste salty, some sugar is added to balance the taste.

According to the General Principles of Nutrition Labeling for Prepackaged Foods, sugar in food refers to monosaccharides and disaccharides. For example, common glucose and fructose are monosaccharides, while white sugar and maltose are disaccharides.

Starch is a polysaccharide and is not included in this test. Therefore, the sugar content test results of the 9 samples are as follows:

I never expected that the grilled sausages bought at the elementary school entrance had the highest sugar content, with almost 1/4 of the ingredients being sugar.

Since children like sweet things, merchants make the sausages with a sweeter taste, which can be said to be "tailor-made".

The World Health Organization strongly recommends a maximum daily intake of 25g of sugar, so a serving of sausage (50g) is almost half of the recommended daily intake.

Then why do sausages contain so much sugar but don’t taste very sweet?

This is because the right amount of sugar can reduce your perception of saltiness. The combination of sweet and salty will make you feel that the sweetness and saltiness are not prominent, but the taste becomes richer.

According to the Dietary Guidelines, foods with a sodium content (NRV) of more than 30% can be considered high-salt foods.

We looked through the nutritional composition tables of several grilled sausages and found that the sodium content NRV value of most grilled sausages was above 33%, and some were even as high as 41%, which are definitely high-salt foods.

If you eat two grilled sausages that day, you can only eat plain noodles for the other three meals.

Many friends are asking: Is it edible to buy the grilled sausages for 1 or 2 yuan on the roadside? Unfortunately, we only bought one at the entrance of the elementary school this time.

Judging from the results, the two-dollar sausage does have meat, but the sugar content is higher. This can be well explained with a picture:

The price is low, but the quality is also low. We really can't bear to feed such sausages to our children.

Based on the results of this review, we have also summarized some purchase suggestions for friends who love grilled sausages:

In addition, after this test, we found that although they are all called grilled sausages, the appearance and composition of each type of grilled sausage are really different. Some are thin and long, with reddish flesh; some are short and fat, with normal flesh color...

We tried to find out whether the indicators of these grilled sausages met the relevant standards, and found that... grilled sausages don't even have a national standard! ! ! The ham sausage next door had its own national standard as early as 2006.

With a high rate of return and flexible meat content, it is no wonder that grilled sausages are so popular in the snack world.

Here, Dad Review also calls on people in the grilled sausage industry to work together to jointly promote the establishment of standards for grilled sausages.

I hope that by then, we and our children will be able to eat sausages of the same quality.

Editor | Cai Cai, Yuan Yuan

Design | Sour

Dad Review