- Excessive brine in packaged bacon can be seen and felt. If the bacon feels spongy, it’s too wet. Dry-cured varieties are a good bet – but they may be saltier.
- Processed meats are high in fat and sodium so cut back your intake. To make bacon less unhealthy (and more crispy) try grilling rather than frying.
- Some producers need better quality control – we found too many products with unacceptably inaccurate labelling of protein and fat content.
- Maximum and minimum values should also be used for products’ nutrition information panels. The Food Standards Code’s current system of “average values” doesn’t give manufacturers enough guidance on the acceptable variation of levels of fat, sodium and sugar in their products. Pork products should also state the percentage of pork they contain.
- We’d like all pork products labelled to show whether or not they’re free farmed, so consumers can see at a glance which products are more “pig-friendly”.
More from consumer.org.nz
Report by Belinda Allan
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