Today I am in receipt of a 6-inch summer sausage. The dark red vacuum-packed meat capsule is from Abbyland, a company which somehow forces kids to offer catalog items to their parents' work colleagues in order to raise money. Yes, I bought this sausage. Under no other circumstances would I consider owning this thing, though I have to admit it looks delicious. It has been sitting in my desk drawer all day and I can't stop thinking about it. I'm blogging about it, fer chrissake.
Should I have some? No. It is 150 calories per serving, and 12 grams of fat. This lump of spiced flesh I have in front of me, it contains 6 servings. Almost a thousand calories if I were to eat it all at once. 72 grams of fat. It's 38% sodium and 12% cholesterol. It's astonishing that the thing made it from Wisconsin all the way to California without our collective psychic energy somehow stopping it. Another nail in the coffin of the sixties.
The first three ingredients listed are beef (remember, in sausage that can be any part of the cow), salt and corn syrup solids (sugar). There is a drawing of an American Eagle on the label, though the sausage does not contain eagle. Although let's face it, it just might.
I am going to slice this very thin and eat it over the course of the next year and a half, two peices at a time. If anything interesting happens I'll get back to you.
I work in a meat factory in wisconsin and to let you know just the finest meat go into sausage. Its not parts and pieces like what you think. Beef navels and beef lean (steaks)are the beef side and on the pork its ham fat trimmed from the hams and cheek meat for the lean then because of the tree huggers sometimes they add soy byproducts.As far as heath from eating this product I am 32 my 4 grandparent who eat this are in ther 80's and my great grand parents were 89-103yrs old when they passed so they never died from eating sausage either.
ReplyDeleteYour point is well-taken - I probably am laboring under sausage paranoia. Truth is you live how long you live, and what you do and eat has a lot less effect on that than I'd care to admit.
ReplyDeleteAnd in any event, sausage is mighty good eatin'. I deserve that. Sadly it's been two years and that sausage is long gone, but I may pick up another one next time I go grocery shopping, cutting off a few slices now and then.