New low-fat sausage a healthy option

The traditional Kiwi sausage sizzle has had a low-fat makeover thanks to the partnering of a health professional and a butcher.
Looking for a healthier option for the annual Wanganui Strategy for Kids, Information for Parents, (SKIP) Children's Day sausage sizzle, the children's day committee turned to Imlay Butcher Shop in the hopes of finding a sausage that met both their cost and health-food needs.
Committee member Marianne Vine, also a Wanganui District Health Board public health nurse, said the committee approached owner/manager Stephen Weekly about the idea, and he was keen to try and make a healthier sausage for them.
As the committee had made a commitment to only give away healthy food at the event, the sausage needed to fit the 10/10/400 rule, which meant less than 10g each of fat and sugar, and less than 400mg of salt per 100g of sausage.
It also had to be affordable enough not only for the committee, but to make them attractive to other community sausage sizzles which might like to provide a healthier option.
Mr Weekly said it took eight months of tinkering and trials, but he was able to come up with a healthier option sausage in time for the celebration on March 6.
Imlay Butcher Shop's usual sausages contained 80 per cent meat. Sausages must have at least 40 per cent meat in them.
This meant it was the other 60per cent which the butchery had to think about, and that percentage could not be made up with meal.
The sausages were trialled on children in health-promoting schools.
Early versions were unpopular, but a combination of 40 per cent root vegetables - carrot, pumpkin, kumara and potato, 10 per cent water, eight per cent meal and two per cent herbs and onion turned out to be the winner.
Mr Weekly tried versions with chicken and lamb, but beef was the most cost-effective and had the extra benefit of adding iron.
The sausages were softer than their meatier counterparts but it did not make any difference on the barbecue, he said.
The texture wasn't as oily as a fattier sausage, and while you could taste the herbs and the curry spice, you couldn't taste the vegetables, Mr Weekly said.
About 1550 sausages were given away with a feedback card at the Children's Day event.
Of the 714 responses handed back, 85 per cent were positive.
Following the success of the healthier sausages at the Children's Day, they have now been made available to the public.