"Ökotest" vegan sausage: 13 out of 19 products fail

bread toppings
“Eco test” on vegan sausage: Most meatless cold cuts fail

“Ökotest” has tested meatless cold cuts. Visually, this can hardly be distinguished from “real” sausages

03/24/2022, 1:31 p.m

2 min reading time

“Ökotest” has made vegan sausages, which for many are an alternative to real salami or mortadella on bread. Apparently, the meatless cold cuts are not all-round healthy either, as the magazine reports.

Whether it is for their own health or for the love of animals – there are many reasons why people do not eat meat in their diet. Anyone who likes the taste of meat in principle, but for whatever reason does not want to eat dead animals, has long had no choice but to do so.

For some time now, however, there have been a number of substitute products that imitate both the appearance and taste of the meat models, sometimes amazingly well, but do not contain any animal products. The magazine “Ökotest” took a closer look at a number of the vegan salamis and mortadellas in the range of German supermarkets and discounters.

However, the result is rather sobering. 19 vegan sausage products, six of them organic, were included in the test. The price for the cold cuts varied from 1.24 to 3.32 euros per 100 grams. It wasn’t the taste or the mouthfeel. These attributes became decisive in the so-called sensory test. And all 19 products did very well in it. According to the tester, the organic cold cuts in particular provided a decent vegetable protein content.

sustainability

Bad for the environment: You should ignore these products the next time you go shopping

Animal products such as meat and sausage If you want to live a healthier life and protect the environment at the same time, you should eat less beef. A new study confirms this. A switch from beef to alternative protein sources such as legumes could reduce the number of diet-related deaths worldwide by up to 2.4 percent. At the same time, the study shows that beef production was responsible for 25 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions from the food sector in 2010. Alternative sources of protein could therefore significantly reduce emissions. Read more about that here. — **Animal products such as meat and sausages**
If you want to live healthier and protect the environment at the same time, you should eat less beef. A new study confirms this. A switch from beef to alternative protein sources such as legumes could reduce the number of diet-related deaths worldwide by up to 2.4 percent. At the same time, the study shows that beef production was responsible for 25 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions from the food sector in 2010. Alternative sources of protein could therefore significantly reduce emissions. Read more about that here.
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Too many mineral oil components in vegan sausage

No, it was the ingredients that spoiled the taste for the testers. Except for the organic products and one conventional cold cut, all candidates contained the controversial thickening agent carrageenan. “Ökotest” also criticized a sometimes higher salt content – also in the non-organic sausage various added flavorings. However, what pulled the majority of the products into the red area was primarily a more or less heavy contamination with mineral oil components. According to the test, some of these may contain carcinogenic compounds, while the effect on the body of others is unclear.

As a precaution, foods should contain as few such compounds as possible, they say. “Mineral oil components can get into vegan cold cuts from lubricants for plastic casings, among other things,” writes “Ökotest”. However, the problem is also known with “real” sausage. In any case, according to the article, vegan cold cuts could almost only win in an (ecological and health) comparison with “real” sausage.