Don't examine that sausage or salami any time soon

by Brian White (Subscribe to Brian White's posts)
Sep 3rd 2007 11:51AM

Okay, I know that millions eat lunch meat every single day. These products, which hang proudly in your local grocer, may taste good (from all the fat), but can reveal many health issues should you care to find out what is inside all that meat by researching all the ingredients.

In this photography layout, salami, pork sausage and more meat products are examined in great detail, using macrophotography. Warning: unless you are really, really interested in seeing what these products look like up-close, don't look at the pictures at this link. They may put you off lunch meat and sausage products forever.

But, these photos do tell the truth about what you eat when consuming these packaged meat products. Whole, free-range turkey is one of the few meats I eat, but after seeing these photos, it's hard to say whether I'll ever eat another piece of mass-produced lunch meat again. Will you?

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Comments (3)

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

John Butler 10-06-2007 @ 9:09AM

You are giving processed meat a bad rap. I make my own sausages from Hot Dogs to Italian Hot , pepperoni, and kielbasa and use only meats you would call "steak" on any other plate. Even fat can be reduced.
Instead of condemning all processed meat maybe you should encourage people to seek out butchers who still make these products and have them make it from choice cuts of meat using fat replacers. Of course, prepare them to pay the higher prices too.

Lizzychan5 10-05-2007 @ 11:35AM

Stop giving lunch meat a bad rap, those pictures show only the fattest and cheapest lunch meat available. Most of the pictures are just close ups of fat blobs which is what makes salami and sausage taste good.

There are plenty of places where you can get salami or other deli meat made with choice cuts of meat, you just have to pay a bit more for it.

Obviously if you cheap out and get Oscar Mayer brand anything you get what you pay for.

Ally 10-05-2007 @ 12:18PM

These pictures are repulsive at best. I was half tempted to call my mom and tell her to throw out all her luncheon meat and hot dogs, but the thought occurred me, What would she eat? She doesn't have much money and can't afford "free range turkey" for her sandwiches. I'm a college student and a vegetarian, so I avoid all this stuff anyway.
I think the scariest thing about these pictures is not so much the fat interlaced in all of them, but the fact that some people don't have a choice when buying meat for lunch and have no choice but to buy this. I wish this article would have addressed how hard it is to eat healthy when you are counting your pennies for your mortgage. Trust me, I lived with my mom over summer break and when you have 4 people to feed, what a piece of meat looks like after 3x magnification isn't so important. I have managed to do it, but my diet consists of frozen vegetables and occasionally whole grain rice, but I'm also only supporting myself, where as my mom has herself and two other kids to worry about.
For poor families it's a conflict between quality vs. quantity and usually quantity wins.