The recent launch of new flexitarian sausages at first glance might have been an out-of-season April Fool's Day stunt. Except there was no "just jokes" punchline.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the product from Beehive caught some flack on social media. The sausages were promoted as "at least 20 per cent plant-basedingredients". Commenters pointed out that almost all meat-based sausages could make that claim, and on top of that, the company seemed to be missing the point of the term flexitarian.
It was hard not to snigger. This looked like a triumph of design-by-committee, at least when it came to the name. Even when you're trying to cash in on a trend, you need to apply a bit of common sense.
Common sense would dictate understanding what flexitarian means to people who say they eat this way. A casual google would tell you that a flexitarian-style diet is based on plants; includes small amounts of animal products, and is mostly natural, whole, unprocessed foods. Sausages of any kind are unlikely to factor heavily.
The use of the term plant-based also seems problematic here.
As I've written before, plant-based – although it literally means just that, and can be applied to many healthy diets – has been enthusiastically adopted by vegan eaters. Vegans – based on the Facebook comments – seem to be appalled by the term "plant-based" coming anywhere near a meat-based product.
It turns out Beehive is not the only one attempting to give sausages a health halo. There's a similar product marketed by Hellers: the Flexitari-Yum range of sausages, burgers and meatballs. These claim to have leaner meat and 28-35 per cent vegetables and superfoods. These contain vegetables, too, plus grains like quinoa and legumes like peas and lentils.
To be fair, I think this creativity in sausages is interesting, and while I haven't tasted them, some of the flavours sound tasty, like Super Greens and Pork or Beef and Beetroot. Putting vegetables in a sausage is not a bad idea in itself. Simply call them gourmet sausages and you'd be on to a winner.
Some of the sausages contained beetroot, super greens and lentils. Photo / 123RF
As shoppers, our bull**** detectors should be on high alert when we're trying to determine healthiness of foods like this. No matter how green and wholesome the packaging is, or how many "free from" claims on the front of the pack, the nutrition info on the back is the only place we're going to get the unvarnished truth.
Start with the ingredients list and keep in mind: regular meat sausages can range from 60 per cent meat to 90 per cent. The rest – and this is true for the flexitarian ones too – is filler, which can include veges, yes, but also flours, starches, preservatives and other additives. Some contain sulphites, the additives in processed meat strongly associated with cancer.
There's also a fair whack of unhealthy salt in some sausages, including flexitarian ones. And by the way, this is also true for some vegetarian and vegan sausages, which in the end are still highly processed foods.
Don't fall for the claims, and have your vegetables in whole form, beside your sausages.
• Niki Bezzant is editor-at-large for Healthy Food Guide; www.healthyfood.com
