Quantificação de sódio em embutidos cárneos

Abstract

Meat sausages are one of the food classes that are most consumed by the world population. In order to conserve them for longer and generate flavor, the food industries have added too much salts, rich in sodium. Based on this, the objective of this work was to quantify the sodium content in meat sausage. A total of 48 samples of meat sausage (12 samples of salami, 12 of cooked ham, 12 of formed ham and 12 of chicken pate) were collected from different brands and batches, which were identified and analyzed for the sodium content using flame photometry after muffle digestion, according to official methodology. The determination of the sodium concentration in meat products showed that 56.2% of the companies had the nutritional labeling values in disagreement with the Brazilian legislation. In addition, 87.8% of the evaluated brands do not meet the goal for sodium reduction agreed between the Ministry of Health and the Brazilian Association of Food Industries (ABIA). The Italian-type salami was the product with the highest sodium content in its formulation, which average between the marks was 1716.17 mg /100 g. Therefore, it was possible to verify that only the establishment of voluntary agreements does not result in an effective reduction in the sodium content in foods.