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Do you enjoy various kinds of processed meats? Then you may have noticed that meat products no longer have the same taste, and not even the same color as years ago. With the development of the chemical industry, new additives and substitutes have also appeared. Chemical substances can imitate any aroma and flavor, but the quality of food is significantly diminished as a result.
Simple test
As far as smoked/processed meats go, the problem is often the meat content. How can you distinguish products that have meat as one of the main ingredients from products that only pretend to be meat? There is a fairly simple method. First cook the product you want to test in water. When it has cooled enough for you to hold it in your hand, break it in half.
You can then easily recognize a quality product – one piece will have a depression, the other will be convex. This means that meat fibers are present in the product. If both halves are approximately the same, they were prepared from soy and other substitutes with flavorings, fats and other additives that do not belong in quality processed meats.
Read the labels
The packaging, which should list the ingredients, also says something about the quality of the meat. Quality sausages or frankfurters should contain more than 80 % meat and less than 2.5 % salt. They do not contain harmful additives and are made according to traditional recipes. Last but not least, such quality processed meats do not contain nitrites. These are added because they improve the color of the final product.
If you are choosing ham, opt for one that contains more than 90 % meat. Šunka is divided into three quality grades. The highest quality ones are made from the whole muscle and contain at least 16 % muscle protein and must not contain any added substances such as starch, coloring or fiber. The second quality group contains at least 13 % muscle proteins and the third group 10 %. For the third, and only for it, there is no restriction on adding further substances. The very worst are hams that have in their name „cihla“ or „nářez“, because they do not meet the legally prescribed standards.
