How to choose sausages and ham that are free of chemicals.

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

Pork sausage and ham are indispensable dishes during Tet (Vietnamese Lunar New Year). However, if consumers don't choose their sausages and ham carefully, they face the risk of borax poisoning. This chemical is often added to sausages and ham to create a crispy and chewy texture.

Borax is a banned chemical that should not be added to Vietnamese sausages and ham. Photo: Hoang Nhi.

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

This chemical is not on the list of additives permitted by the Ministry of Health for use in food preservation and processing. This means it will have adverse effects on the body.

In fact, when borax enters the body in high doses, it causes acute poisoning. Even in small doses, it accumulates and causes liver and kidney poisoning, which is very dangerous for the body.

Studies on the toxicity of borax show that it can cause vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhea, and rashes. It can also cause irritation leading to depression or meningeal irritation. In particular, once ingested, it accumulates in the liver and is very difficult to eliminate. When a sufficient amount accumulates, it can manifest as chronic diseases. Besides liver damage, borax can also cause degeneration of the reproductive organs and infertility.

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

Therefore, choosing safe sausages and ham is essential for consumers. According to Associate Professor Thinh, people can use the following criteria to distinguish whether sausages contain borax or not:

- Observation: The surface of the sliced ​​pork sausage should be smooth and moist, with a few porous holes in some places. This is because the sausage is made from good quality meat, ground to a thick, sticky consistency, and contains air bubbles. When boiled or steamed, the air bubbles burst, creating a porous surface. Good quality pork sausage is considered delicious when sliced, revealing an ivory white color with a slight pinkish tint.

If the sausage is too soft, lacks aroma, and has no pores on the surface, it means it has been mixed with flour. Conversely, if the sausage is unusually crispy, chewy, and smooth, it has been adulterated with borax during processing.

- Aroma: The aroma of good quality pork sausage is subtle, blended with the scent of the wrapping leaves. If you cut a piece of sausage and it smells strongly of pork, be cautious; it may have been artificially flavored with meat.

- Taste: The pork sausage is delicious; when bitten into, the pieces are firm and not crumbly. The characteristic flavor of the sausage lingers in the throat after swallowing. When eaten, the sausage has a sweet, fragrant, crispy, and tender taste, without any dry or tough texture.

Additionally, to test if Vietnamese sausage (giò chả) contains borax, you can take a piece of turmeric paper (paper soaked in fresh turmeric juice and then dried) and press it against the surface of the product. After observing for a minute, if the turmeric paper changes from yellow to red, the food contains borax.

According to Zing