As of: March 27, 2024, 12:08 p.m
By: Sarah Isele
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For breakfast or dinner on bread, sausage is very popular in Germany.
But how healthy is sausage actually – and which one is the healthiest?
Whether as cold cuts on sandwiches, as a hearty snack while hiking or with fries - sausage delights young and old alike.
As a child, you could get a free slice of sausage at the butcher if you just looked at it as sweet.
Although many people avoid meat and sausage products, there are still some who use them on their bread every day.
Which sausage is actually the healthiest for a healthy diet?
Is sausage healthy or unhealthy?
In Germany, an average of almost 30 kilograms of meat products are eaten per person per year.
That's around 80 grams per day.
Quite a lot considering that according to WHO (World Health Organization) this is too much, nutritionists recommend an amount of 40 grams per day.
In addition to protein, meat also provides the minerals sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium, phosphorus, iron and zinc.
It also contains B vitamins and vitamins A and E.
By the way, there are also healthy and less healthy types of meat.
In contrast to meat, sausage is a processed product.
Flavor enhancers, spices or other types of meat are often added and mixed in.
When making sausage, curing salt is often used, which consists of nitrate or nitrite.
However, in our body, nitrate is converted into nitrite, which, together with proteins, forms so-called nitrosamines.
And they can be carcinogenic.
A working group at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) evaluated more than 800 studies on the dangers of sausage.
An overview of the results:
The risk of colon cancer is closely related to the consumption of sausage and ham.
A daily portion of 50 grams increases the risk of illness by 18 percent and every additional 50 grams increases by a further 18 percent.
The processing of sausage can produce various substances that either cause cancer or are suspected of doing so.
Which sausage is healthiest?
You don't have to be afraid of a slice of ham, salami or Lyonnais on your bread.
According to experts, the risk for each individual of developing cancer simply due to the consumption of meat or sausage is low.
As is well known, the quantity makes the poison, which is why sausage, as with everything else, should be enjoyed in moderation.
If you follow this, you will ensure that sausage products do not become the main enemy of your health.
Of course, given this background, the question arises as to which sausage is the healthiest.
The sausage that you can eat without hesitation.
After all, sausage still contains too much salt, fat and phosphorus.
Luckily, some varieties are lower in salt and fat than others.
A distinction is also made between sausage and air-dried meat.
This is a whole piece of the animal that is simply air-dried with salt and time, without any additives.
HEIDELBERG24 has put together a list of the healthiest types of sausage:
1st place: Iberian ham
2nd place: Serrano ham
3rd place: cooked ham (shoulder ham)
4th place: chicken breast
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What is the lowest calorie sausage?
If you value a low-calorie diet but don't want to go without sausage, you can still choose some types of sausage.
Even though sausage consists mainly of proteins and fats and has a high sodium content due to the addition of salt and spices, there are some varieties that are low in calories.
For example, 100 grams of farmer's ham has 200 kilocalories.
100 grams of farmer's sausage, on the other hand, has a whopping 356 kilocalories.
The leanest option is actually the leg ham, which only brings 137 kilocalories to the bread at 100 grams.
Fans of beer ham can also be happy, as it contains just 172 kilocalories per 100 grams.
Of course, it gets even healthier if you put the healthiest sausage directly on the healthiest bread.
Which sausage can I eat if I want to lose weight?
People who want to lose weight pay attention not only to the number of calories they consume, but also to the fat content of their foods.
Many types of sausage are said to contain too much fat and are therefore not a good food for losing weight.
There are some types of sausage with a low fat content that are definitely suitable for losing weight.
Not only sausage, but also some foods help you lose weight healthily.
Aspic sausage is one of the types of sausage with a low fat content; it only has 3 grams of fat per 100 grams of sausage.
Turkey ham and nut ham also only contain 3 grams of fat per 100 grams of sausage.
The cooked ham (shoulder ham) contains a little more, namely 3.7 grams of fat per 100 grams. (rah)