How to choose ham and sausage that do not contain chemicals

Children who eat food containing 1-2 grams of borax per kilogram of body weight will die within 10-12 hours. Here are some tips to help you choose delicious ham and sausage.

Ham and sausage are indispensable dishes during Tet. However, if consumers do not choose ham and sausage carefully, they face the risk of borax poisoning. This is a chemical often added to ham and sausage to create crunchiness and toughness.

Borax is a banned chemical that is not allowed in ham and sausage. Photo: Hoang Nhi.

Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Duy Thinh, Institute of Biotechnology and Food Technology - Hanoi University of Science and Technology, warns that borax is very toxic if added to food.

These chemicals are not on the list of additives permitted by the Ministry of Health for use in food preservation and processing. That means they will have adverse effects on the body.

In fact, borax when entering the body in high doses will cause acute poisoning. In small doses, it will accumulate and cause liver and kidney poisoning, which is very dangerous for the body.

Research on the toxicity of borax shows that this substance can cause vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhea, and rash. This substance also causes irritation leading to depression, or stimulates the meninges. In particular, when entering the body, they will accumulate in the liver, making it very difficult to eliminate. When accumulated in large enough quantities, they will erupt and cause chronic diseases. Not only causing liver damage, borax also causes degeneration of the reproductive organs and infertility.

According to international recommendations, children who eat food containing 1-2 grams of borax per kilogram of body weight will die within 10-12 hours. In chronic cases, children will suffer from malnutrition and slow brain development.

Therefore, choosing safe ham and sausage is very necessary for people. According to Associate Professor Thinh, people can base on the following criteria to distinguish whether ham contains borax or not:

- Observation: The surface of the cut ham must be smooth and moist, with some porous holes on the surface. This is because the ham is made from good meat, ground to a sticky consistency, and covered with a layer of air. When boiling or steaming the ham, the air bursts, creating a porous surface. When cut, the ham is called delicious and has an ivory color that is slightly pinkish.

If the ham is too soft, has no aroma, and has no holes on the surface, it means it has been mixed with flour. If the ham is crispy, chewy, and unusually smooth, it means it has been mixed with borax during processing.

- Scent: The scent of good ham is only faint, mixed with the scent of the wrapping leaves. If you cut a piece of ham and smell the fragrant smell of ham, be careful, it may have been marinated with meat flavor.

- Taste: The ham is delicious, when bitten, the pieces are not mushy. The characteristic flavor of the ham remains in the throat, after swallowing. When eaten, the ham will have a sweet, crispy, soft taste, not dry or solid, and not dregs.

In addition, if you want to test whether ham or sausage contains borax or not, you can take a piece of turmeric paper (test paper soaked in fresh turmeric water and then dried) and press it on the surface of the product. After a minute of observation, if you see the turmeric paper change from yellow to red, the food contains borax.

According to Zing