Consumer, Netavisen | What Rema 1000 contains in minced meat triggers reactions: – Full of it

[Nettavisen] On average, we Norwegians eat 6.5 kilograms of meat and pie dough per year. This works out to 35,043,898 kilograms.

But if you think that ground beef is minced meat, you are wrong.

And there is a particularly important difference between Kiwi and Reema 1000 when it comes to minced meat, says the nutritionist.

Huge price differences

Nettavisen examined 15 different types of Rema 1000 and Kiwi. There are big differences between:

• price
• meat content
• fat content
• water
• salt

Minced meat prices range from NOK 92.15 to NOK 213.50 per kilo.

For dough, prices range from NOK 164.00 to NOK 211.25 per kilo.

Too much fat

The percentage of fat in minced meat is often 14 percent. Some of them fell to 11.5 and 9 percent. But two of the minced meat products sold at Rema 1000 contain up to 20 percent fat.

This is a way to get rid of some of the less valuable parts of the animal, says professor of nutrition Birger Svihus at the Norwegian University of Environment and Biosciences (NMBU).

Meatloaf with beef and pork is labeled XXL. It was the cheapest Nettavisen product found, at NOK 92.15 per kilo.

– He says: they stock up on cheap pork.

Here, “beef” is mentioned first on the package, even though the ingredient list shows that there is only 22 percent beef in the package.

– ribs are cheap. Except for Christmas, we don’t eat much of the fatty parts. “We eat bacon, it’s good, but it’s high in fat,” says Svihos.

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– I wouldn’t buy it

Svihus does not taste unusually high in fat minced meat.

Meat paste that contains a lot of fat is not good. Fat is simply fattening.

– Were you going to buy minced meat with a fat content of 20 percent?

– No, no, I’m not going to buy ground beef with a lot of fat in it. In the first place because it is not necessary. He says the meat is golden in terms of taste and nutrition.

Differences in fat

Fat has negative health consequences. This is why Svihus recommends using pancake batter with a lower fat content. But there are also differences in the type of fat.

– There is more saturated fat in cattle. More saturated in cattle and lamb than in pigs.

Meanwhile, beef is more nutritious.

Ground beef is nutritionally beneficial. It contains more iron than pork and chicken. More vitamin B12. Beef is more nutritious.

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Rema 1000 adds salt and water

Nettavisen’s examination also shows a significant difference between 15 different types of Kiwi and Rema 1000, ie water and salt added.

All variants of the Rema 1000 have water and salt added to them. It is not owned by any of the Kiwis.

This applies to both minced meat and pie dough, and it applies to Gild products. Gilde’s variants added water and salt in Rema 1000, but without it in Kiwi.

What they do is dilute the water and fatten the product, says Svihus.

In this sense, you get less meat for the money. Even more dangerous, however, is the added salt, says Svihos.

– We take too much salt. It leads to high blood pressure and can lead to a heart attack. He says: We have to reduce our salt intake.

Kiwi: – You won’t have to pay for water

Kiwi cut salt from all minced meat in 2014. It then sold more than 12 million packages annually, which contained a total of 40,000 kilograms of salt.

At Kiwi, we want to make it easier and easier for customers to make healthy choices. Kiwi customers also don’t have to pay for salt and water. If you want to add water or salt, you can easily do so at home, says Kiwi communications consultant Nora Mile Helgesen.

In Norway, we eat an average of about ten grams of salt per day, twice the amount recommended by health authorities.

– As one of several measures to reduce salt intake among the population, no salt is added to our dough, says Helgesen.

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Rima 1000 does not answer the questions

Nettavisen has asked Rema 1,000 more questions.

• Why is water and salt added to minced meat and pancake batter?
• Why add salt when salt is such a major public health problem?
• Kiwi has varieties without added salt and water, how do you advocate adding that?

Rima 1000 took questions on Friday at 1pm, and after three and a half hours Rima 1000 asked for more time to answer the questions, asking for the entire article to be postponed until next week.

Late Friday evening, Camilla Mazzocchi, manager of the Rema 1000 fresh and frozen food restaurant, responded in an email.

“We are selling well, which indicates that our customers appreciate this product,” she writes.

The director does not answer any of Nettavisen’s questions.

She does not answer why they chose to add water and salt.

Nor does she answer how they can defend it when the competing kiwi has not added water or salt to any of its varieties.

– We believe that the customer can choose based on the field of use and taste preferences.

“Meat dough with a slightly higher fat content, for example, is very good to use in meat pies,” Mazzocchi wrote in an email.