Sausages, should you limit your consumption?

Sausages are part of the Spanish culinary tradition, and they add flavor and color to numerous spoon dishes , appetizing at any time of the year, but especially when the temperatures drop. Sausages have been the great allies of our grandparents, who used them, along with foods from the garden such as potatoes and vegetables, to prepare a complete menu made up of a single dish: Madrid stew, montañés, or maragato, escudella, migas from Extremadura , rotten pot, Galician pot… Dishes that comfort, and that provided them with the necessary energy to carry out field work and resist the cold of winter.

Sausages are also eaten raw, alone or in a sandwich , and are very helpful when we don’t have time to cook, or to take with us when we go out on a hike. However, and precisely because of their high fat and salt content and their high caloric intake, these meat products should be consumed in moderation.

We explain the characteristics of sausages, their nutritional composition, consumption recommendations, and their best uses in the kitchen.

What are sausages?

According to the Spanish Food Code , an official document that gathers and defines food terminology, sausages are a type of meat derivative. Meat derivatives are classified into:

• Salted, smoked and marinated.
• Bacons.
• Sausages , charcuterie and cold cuts.
• Meat extracts and broths.
• Guts.

The definition of sausages is those derivatives, prepared from authorized meats, minced or not, subjected or not to curing processes, added or not of edible offal and pork fats, vegetable products, condiments and spices, and introduced into casings. natural or artificial.

Types of sausages

According to their main ingredient, sausages are classified as:

• Meat sausages : the most well-known and consumed meat sausages include: chorizo, sausage loin, morcón, salchichón, fuet, sausage, butifarra, sobrasada… The products described under this name are made with meats that have specific characteristics defined by the relevant regulations. , using exclusively pork fat. Depending on their composition, they are classified as ‘pure’ or ‘mixture’, depending on whether they contain meat from one or more species. Regarding their preparation, they are divided into ‘raw’ (fresh and cured) and ‘scalded’. Regarding their texture, they can be hard, soft or pasty. In terms of color, they are categorized as red or white, depending on whether they contain paprika or not.
• Organ meats : Organ meats to consider include Galician sausage, sabadeña, or liver sausage. These products are characterized by including, in addition to the typical ingredients of meat sausages, pieces of viscera that have been previously cooked or cured before being incorporated into the sausage.
• Blood sausages : the most representative blood sausages are blood sausages and botagueñas. They are products with a soft or semi-soft texture, prepared in a raw or cooked state. Its fundamental ingredient is blood, complemented by additions of meat, organ meats, lard, bacon and a variety of vegetable ingredients. All this is introduced into a large diameter casing for processing.
• Cold cuts : cold cuts are a fairly heterogeneous group that includes, for example, York ham, mortadella, chopped, roulade, galantine or chicharrón. They are products, of diverse composition, that are made with pork, beef, bacon, or combinations of these, also including poultry and its gizzards, eggs, milk and various spices. They are presented in blocks protected by thin layers of bacon, cellophane, or other permitted materials, and are contained within animal membranes or any other type of authorized packaging.