• Sugar - This will be in here for flavouring and comes in at 5.8g per bar, which is just over one teaspoon. This bar does taste very sweet.
• Salt - Anything which is cured as biltong or jerky will need salt. You will get 420mg of sodium per bar.
• Spices
• Flavourings - These will be artificial as the word "natural" doesn't appear.
• Tomato powder - This is dried tomato.
• Maltodextrin - This is another form of sugar which is derived from starch.
• Onion powder - This is dried onion.
• Smoke flavour - Most food products will use "natural smoke flavour" which is made by burning wood chips or sawdust which produces smoke which is then condensed into solids or liquids, otherwise known as liquid smoke.
Or the flavour can be achieved by mixing chemicals together to get the same taste. I can't tell you which one was used but I would think that if it was natural they might have told you on the ingredients label. Either way it tells us this meat wasn't smoked.
• Flavour enhancer (E621) - This is MSG, which some people avoid. It is accepted by the NZ Food Standards Authority that some people who consume MSG may experience symptoms such as burning sensations, numbness, chest pain, headache, nausea and asthma but it says it is okay to have it in food as long as it is labelled.
• Acidity regulator (E330) - This is citric acid.
• Spice extract
• Antioxidant (E316) - This is sodium erythorbate, which is made from beetroot and sugarcane.
• Caramel colour - Unclear which caramel colour is used in here. There are four types ranging from 150a, which is the safest, to 150d, which is made by reacting sugar with ammonia and sulphites under high pressures and high temperatures.
• Preservative (E250) - This is sodium nitrate, which is a common preservative in packaged meats like bacon and sausages. It kills bacteria that cause botulism and also acts as a colour fixative.
There is concern that it can react with stomach acid to form carcinogenic N-nitroso compounds during digestion. A study has found that adults who consumed the highest amounts of nitrate and nitrite were almost 30 per cent more likely to develop bladder cancer than those who consumed the lowest amount of the compounds. Our Food Standards point out that nitrite and nitrate are found naturally in vegetables and that conditions related to overexposure to nitrates and nitrite are rare.
Some smallgoods producers have started using other preservatives to avoid the use of sodium nitrate or nitrite.
My recommendations
I'm not happy about the MSG or the sodium nitrate in this product. Both have big question marks over them as ingredients and healthy eaters avoid them. I picked up a packet of beef snacks made by Canterbury Biltong and found it had just five ingredients - beef, salt, sugar, spices and vinegar (a natural preservative).
So that proves you can have a beef snack without all the additives, although there are differences in the nutrition analysis. Jack's Links have more sugar and less fat than Canterbury Biltong (5.8g of sugar and less than 1g of fat per 25g serve compared to Canterbury Biltong's 0.45g of sugar and 4.2g of fat per 30g serve).
So my choice is Canterbury Biltong because I'd rather have my beef snack with fewer additives and less sugar, and I can live with a little more fat.
Highlights
• Low in fat but makes up for that with sugar.
• Uses MSG and sodium nitrate.
• Contains artificial flavours.
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