Don’t eat the sausages

I have carried out some research on the sausages available in and around Sydney.
As a result I can only advise that you avoid them altogether. The main problem is that they are too salty. All you can taste is salt.
The best sausages that I have found have been in supermarkets where at least they often do put the salt content on the labelling. Typically pork sausages have approximately 750mg of sodium per 100 grams of product. That is way too salty. The best I saw was about 540mg per 100 grams and these were OK but hard to find.

Beef sausages seem popular over here but I have not tried them and would rather have beef in a purer form.

So what about all these premium butchers that you see is various high streets ?

I went to Penny’s in Mosman. They are well regarded in the area. The sad fact is that they do not know what is in their pork sausages. They buy the mix in and have no idea of it’s constituents. They will still quite happily want to charge you $20 per Kg for these mystery bags. I did not take the risk.

In UK supermarkets there is a traffic light colour coding system on foods that makes it easy to determine how much of your daily recommended intake of various ingredients are included in the product.
Here is an example of the labelling.

In Australia the food industry is resisting moves to introduce a similar arrangement as you can see here.
Once again the Australian government is just the mouthpiece of commercial interests.

The maximum that you will pay in a UK supermarket for the very best sausages is around £6.50 per Kg (approx $9.75 at current exchange rates).

Conclusion – Don’t eat the sausages.

If you know of a source of good quality, low sodium sausages in Sydney then please provide me with the details.

Peewit

Some salt info

Hi

With my SRP starting next month here are a couple of photos of the food labelling on some Stilton purchased from Morrisons in Woking, England. Morrisons is a supermarket chain that tends to appeal to those on a tight food budget.

 

 

Note the easy to read labelling on the front of the product that gives the amount of certain significant constituents per typical 30 gram serving, as well as the percentage of your daily guidline amount. You can see a bigger version of the photo by clicking on it.

Sorry, some of the cheese has been consumed. I can testify to it's creamy texture and smooth taste.

Here is a link to an interesting article about salt reduction in Australian food.

Peewit

My SRP starts soon

I will be starting on my SRP as soon as I get back to Sydney. I will also get my webcam at www.sydneyview.com running again.

Yes, having just spent almost six months in the British summer, I will be heading back to Sydney soon. The summer in England was a disappointment with very few sunny days and an awful lot of cloudy, dull days. I remember wearing shorts and a T shirt for a week or two back in April soon after I had arrived in the UK. Since then I have only dug out my shorts on one occasion. Trips to the coast or cricket matches have mainly been on cold and windy days. I feel more than ready for a bit of Sydney sunshine.

Maybe I should say what SRP stands for. Well it is Sausage Research Project although Salt Reduction Project would also be appropriate.
I love a lot of things about Australia but it seems impossible to get a decent British style banger. All the sausages I have tried on my previous visits have not been good. It hardly matters what type of sausage you buy because when you come to eat it, all you can taste is salt. I also noticed that when buying Stilton cheese from a Mosman deli that again the cheese was very salty and this masked the expected creamy Stilton flavour. I can only assume that all this salt is to improve preservation in warm temperatures. Yet there are plenty of refrigerators here and beer is always served cold, so it is hard to see the problem. Maybe the Australian health authorities are out of touch with the sort of salt reduction programmes taking place in Europe. It is known that high salt consumption can contribute to problems of heart disease and stroke.

Anyway in my SRP I plan to visit lots of butchers and deli’s around Sydney and the inner suburbs. I intend to tell the proprietor that I am looking for an English style pork sausage that is not too salty and that I can actually taste. I will then purchase their recommended sausage. Once I have cooked it and tasted it, I will keep a note of my results. I will tell the shopkeeper that I intend to publish my results.

If anyone is interested in where to get a low salt, tasty sausage in Sydney then let me know and I will publish my findings in this blog. In fact if you can suggest a suitable purveyor then please let me know.

While I am at it, it would be also good to know where you can get a decent pork pie. The ones from David Jones seem salty and on one occasion, I walked the entire length of Mosman High Street and going into all the shops selling food asked for a pork pie. Most of the shopkeepers looked at me as if I was mad and nobody had any.

If I can find a satisfactory Sydney sausage then my Sydney sojourn will be perfect. (Hard to say that).

Peewit