What does it mean when meat products on supermarket shelves claim to be 100% meat yet contain fillers such as in sausages? Thanks. B.D. by e-mail
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The labels could also read: “contains herbs, preservative and colour” so, quite obviously, it must be less than 100% meat. There are two trains of thought with the ingredients in processed foods. Say you have 5 kg of raw meat, but after cooking it, its weight has dropped to 4 kg. The law allows you to make up that other kg with cheap filler. You now have 5 kg of the mixture and, because it weighs the same as the original meat, you can call it 100% meat!
The other explanation is that the labels do not mean that the whole product is 100% meat, merely that the meat that is in it is 100% meat. Both theories are misleading whichever one you want to believe. We the consumers should look carefully at labels on food. Take the added water content in ham for example. The pack could say, “No more than 20% added water. The ham could contain up to 30% natural water in the first place. Therefore you would be buying a product with 50% water content!
Environmental.
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