Question about chorizo and other sausage

[Lisa0825]

OK, just click on outta here if you don't like knowing what is in your food! I mean it!!! go now!!!



OK, I admit I am very naive when it comes to the ingredients in sausages and hot dogs and such, and I have enjoyed NOT knowing. But I went to buy chorizo last month, and this has been bugging me ever since!

On the packages of chorizo, the ingredients were listed, including "pig salivary glands, pig lymph nodes," and various other pig parts.

BLECHHHHHHHH!!!!:puke:

I used the chorizo once, and since then, it has sat in my freezer, and I hate to even LOOK at it.

Meanwhile, I had smoked sausage for a snack last night. Ingredients were listed generically, at the store, like beef, pork, etc.

What I want to know is this: Are chorizo makers just more honest than other sausage makers (rather, is the same kind of junk in most/all sausage), or is chorizo made way differently (is other sausage made of nicey nice things)?

HELP! I like the taste of chorizo, and I like other sausages, but I am having a crisis of sorts here!LOL! I have a rather adventurous side when it comes to food, but I cannot stand the whole concept of organ meats!!! :puke:

But I must know the truth, now that my innocence was shattered :cry:

[bearfan454]

1. Chorizo makers are more honest

In hot dogs, it says beef or pork. That could be ears, snouts, organs, anything. It IS beef and pork. Just because it says pork or beef doesn't mean they are honest. The internal and scrap parts ARE pork and beef, so they get away with the truth in advertising laws being bent a little.

Another example - Pre packaged danish pastries might say made with real butter. They might have a 500 gallon vat they mix in and throw in 1/2 teaspoon of real butter. That is made with real butter. They can get away with it.

A big one to me is whaen it says sugar - 0 grams. If the listed ingredients say dextrose, maltose, high fructose corn syrup, or corn syrup, that is sugar. Read your OscarMayer hot dog ingredients. Corn syrup is one of the main ingredients.

Did you know that the listed ingredients by law have to be listed by weight ? That means whatever is listed first is what there is the most of in the ingredients. Most of your spices are almost pure salt.

[The empressof all]

2. I have a package in my freezer as well

For the very same reason. I used some of it but after reading the description of the ingredients it just didn't taste the same any more. I'm not normally a finicky eater but this was just too much information.

[Stinky The Clown]

3. Well, well .... you just stumbled on one of life's best kept secrets

That's why we have the saying that many things are like making sausage. Its messy going in but great when its done.

I will never forget the time, back in the day when I was operating foodservice facilities, we took advantage of a special on cheap hot dogs. I clearly recall some of the ingredients being sheep lips and sheep ears.

The labeling is the issue. The laws say you have to list what's in stuff. And, as you point out, some people are more thorough than others. It isn't about honesty so much as how detailed they care to get.

Having said that, I dare say there's no classic chorizo recipe that uses the salivary glands or lymph nodes of swine or bovines, or anything else in the animal kingdom. The truth, however, is that it all gets used by someone. Remember that old saw about there being no part of the pig except the squeal that can't be eaten? Its very true. But before you start gagging, it isn't as if they put in whole lymph nodes weighed out carefully from the lymph node bin. More likely all organ meats (also called "variety meats" ... cute name, huh?) are cooked separately, reduced and ground ... maybe even to a powder. They're then added to the good meats as a filler. Even a forensic scientist would have difficulty finding discernible lymph node pieces in your chorizo. Does it say anything about bone meal? That could be in there too, again as filler.

The best quality sausages - generally artisanally made - use only good quality cuts and the better fats of the animal in their product. National brands likely use similar ingredients, but with less choice meat cuts, fat from anywhere, and maybe a bit of variety meats. It goes down from there.

Much of the southern sausage - sage country sausage - use all the odd stuff. But the better ones advertise as being "whole ham" sausage or something similar. Tennessee Pride is, if I recall correctly, one of the "whole ham" types. But even at this, there could easily be skin and lymph nodes since skin and lymph nodes, and bone meal, for that matter, are part and parcel of a whole, untrimmed ham. I'm not saying Tennessee Pride does this - I don't know - but it would not be unheard of for such top brands to do that. And it is all perfectly legal and perfectly wholesome. Honest it is.

So, I guess we get back to the saying about sausage making being messy .....

For what its worth, I'm a sausage lover. And I know what goes into it and I have been to a couple of plants and watched the process .... and I still eat it.

[Lisa0825]

4. Thanks y'all...

I had the feeling it was all like that, but thought I'd ask. In a way, it makes me more likely to eat the chorizo again, knowing that other sausages are like that too, so it's not like it's worse than anything else. But I hate knowing for sure that they're all like that!LOL

And actually, somehow knowing that it's all thoroughly processed and basically unidentifiable does make it less revolting!

I looked at 4 brands, and ALL of them had "pig salivary glands" and "pig lymph nodes" in the first four ingredients. If there had bee a "real cuts o meat" brand, I would have snapped it up!

[bearfan454]

5. The scary ones just say pork

That could be eyeballs or brain. It's pork.

[Pert_UK]

6. Lips and arseholes...it's what sausage is all about!

But seriously.....decent quality chorizo or other sausage will have better quality meat in it. All sausage is going to have some offal (which isn't a bad thing) but the shit that is 99p ($2) for 12 is always going to be snouts, hoof and eyelash.

"mechanically reclaimed meat", as featured in many UK pies and sausages, is just a euphemism for the crap they scrape off the floor and from the inside of skulls.......Avoid where possible.....