Will smoked sausage – from Unox and Hema, for example – soon be banned?

Smoked sausage is also sausage.

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A steaming smoked sausage is a must when you serve a stew. Such a big curved whopper looks best on a pile of kale or stew. Drizzle some gravy over it and add some mustard. Don’t do anything about it anymore. But the Dutch delicacy is currently under pressure, because the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is threatening a ban. That’s what it writes AD Today.

If such a ban were to come into effect, companies such as Unox and Hema would have to immediately stop selling smoked sausage (in this form). And that has everything to do with the smoky flavor that is added to the meat sticks to give them their characteristic taste.

Smoke flavor

After all, smoked sausages are no longer really smoked these days. That process, in which a fire is literally lit and the sausages are then smoked over a fire, is not necessarily very healthy or environmentally friendly. That is why producers switched to cooking sausages decades ago. The smoke flavor is added later. And therein lies the crux, it seems.

That smoke taste can cause cancer, infertility and other diseases, says the EFSA. The aroma is made by liquefying smoke and thus ‘capturing’ the flavour. The harmful substances are then removed, but some harmful substances also remain in the smoke aroma, the European organization discovered.

There is hope

Well, it’s probably not too bad how bad eating a smoked sausage is. The EFSA assumes the worst scenario. Getting diseases also depends on many factors, and if you have a healthy diet, with the occasional fat sausage on the menu, that meat snack will not make the difference.

Nevertheless, the European Food Safety Authority now has doubts about extending the permission to use smoke flavorings for another ten years. This week it will be announced whether such a ban will be introduced. In all likelihood, there will be a transition period anyway. This gives producers the opportunity to develop alternatives so that smoked sausage can continue to exist.