HAM, and Carbs

(Sammy J Shuford) #1

Ham is cured a lot of time with Sugar, is that small amount of concern?

Thanks,
We want to do it right this time

#2

Itā€™s up to you what you consider right I think, it matters what you can get tooā€¦
I easily buy sugarless ham so I do that.
But my food sometimes have a tiny bit of added sugar. If I donā€™t feel it at all and itā€™s only 1-2g sugar per month from my processed meat, I donā€™t worry about it. Surely many people are way more allowing and itā€™s fine and understandable. I consider meat with added sugar subpar. But sugar in meat is a huge things in other countries, people even love thatā€¦

(Doug) #3

The curing process usually doesnā€™t have too much sugar - although sugar and other flavorings are often injected into the meat. You can get ā€˜uncured hamā€™ which has no carbs, or close enough to be essentially zero. Itā€™s going to vary, producer by producer.

Glazed%20ham
Glazed ham.png297Ɨ684 18.9 KB

Above is for glazed ham. The sugar coating makes up almost all the 16 grams of carbs. If one is trying to stay under 20 g a day, then the one serving of glazed almost blows the whole thing.

For unglazed ham, even when ā€œsugar curingā€ is used, itā€™s not nearly so high in carbs. One serving is often listed at 1 gram of carbohydrates, though portion sizes are usually small, like 60 g or 2 ounces.

#4

My current ham says 0.1g carbs in 100g. Ingredient lists has no sugar or spices - as it should be, they donā€™t really have much to do with a proper traditional ham.

I can get ham from a farm too (I only have some smoked ribs now, itā€™s amazing) but there are no labels there :wink: I trust that place though and feel no sugar. Just lots of salt but smoked salted pork is like that.

I tried to imagine glazed ham. I knew it exists somewhere, I never met it, why would have I? We donā€™t put sugar on meat normally here. But the sugar percentageā€¦ That would be enough or rather too much for sweetsā€¦ My high-carber sweet-toothed SO has about as much xylitol in his chocolateā€¦ I hardly understand sugary rubs but glazed ham is on another level (I think. no idea how people use rubs).

(Doug) #5

Sounds good, Shinita, and I think thatā€™s the way it should be. In the U.S. sugar is added to so many things, and I guess people are used to a sweet taste with ham.

#6

We have sugar in many things as well but actually sweet meat and a significant amount of sugar in meat products must be rare as I never met such things - except tinned fish, they can be very sugary due to the sauce. And some salads or spreads can be overly sweet. But a normal meat product that is mostly meat, thatā€™s only barely, not noticeable sugary or not at all.

But I looked at BBQ sauces, they are insane. And not traditional, maybe thatā€™s why?

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #7

@Sammy_J_Shuford This is the thing to be aware of. Be sure to multiply the amount of carbohydrate by the number of ā€œservingsā€ you are actually going to be eating.

(KCKO, KCFO) #8

Usually salt cured ham is called country ham. No sugar is used on them. Boil it then bake it remove excess salt. I love the stuff.

Prosciutto is dry cured ham and usually doesnā€™t have any sugar added to it, but check the label, you never know especially if it is produced in the USA instead of Italy.

(Bob M) #9

I use the hams that are mainly smoked, and also read the label to find the ones with lower carb content. Some of them can be quite high, and Iā€™ve mistakenly bought some that were way too sweet.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #10

I recently read something in The Joy of Cooking about soaking hams before cooking. I wonder if that would remove the sugar as well as the salt. Until I read that, I never knew that we were supposed to soak them. Mom always cooked hams as is.

(Bob M) #11

I believe there are two different hams. One is the country ham as pointed out by @collaroygal, where you often do soak it:

I donā€™t think Iā€™ve ever had a country ham.

I guess you could also soak a city ham, though I usually just look at labels (and again, doing everything by 100g would help here) and select one thatā€™s low in carbs. I just picked one up yesterday (itā€™s Easter!) and got one thatā€™s 1 gram of carbs per 3 ounces (I think that was the weight). There was another one that was 7 grams for a similar/same weight.

One thing I donā€™t know is if theyā€™re including the packet of ā€œstuffā€ thatā€™s often included, and which I throw away.

#12

I donā€™t need soaking as I prefer my ham raw :slight_smile: We cook smoked hocks in dishes, ham goes into scrambled eggs (my SO) or stays raw (me, me, me).

I suppose I could soak and dry but that sounds too much work and I donā€™t have so very salty ham.

But hams here may be offenders when it comes to saltā€¦ I think 7% salt is the maximum but there are rule breakers with 11%ā€¦ That must be vile.
My problems start around 2% but only if I eat the stuff all alone (I prefer to do that with nearly everything). Eggs can help me out so my current 4.9% salt (0.1% carbs) ham is still okay.

(KCKO, KCFO) #13

They are common in the Southern states. My great aunt used to raise a couple of hogs every year and do the processing herself. So I ate country hams a lot as a child. I favor salty flavors over sugary ones, so country has always been my preferred type of ham.

(Geoffrey) #14

I recently made a couple of hams from venison and did not use sugar. It cured in the brine for 14 days. A recipe I came across called for soaking the ham for 30 minutes prior to smoking. I didnā€™t do this thinking that like my bacon, rinsing it well would take care of the salt. Boy was I wrong. It was still very salty. No so bad that it couldnā€™t be eaten but it wasnā€™t very tasty. I ended up boiling it for ten minutes and it was great after that.

(Peter - Don't Fear the Fat ) #15

I do a lot of label reading down that end of the aisle. In the UK almost all sausages, gammon, bacon, haggis, ham, black pudding etc are sugar laden.
Gonna have to make my own sausage.

#16

Yes, here too. Why, oh why, add sugar to meat?

(Peter - Don't Fear the Fat ) #17

velvet itā€™s ridiculous.
Recently I asked in a butchers shop if their loose sausages had sugar.
He asked me to wait while he checked his packaging.
He was shocked to see how much sugar was listed! ā€¦ I wasnā€™t.

#18

That is one thing I can never wrap my head aroundā€¦
I looked at aā€¦ rub? Spice mix for meat. So I looked at its package, I bought from those ā€œseriesā€, the maxican one was lovelyā€¦ This is ā€œamerican bbqā€ and it has sugar. Pretty much. Or rather not pretty. Way more salt so maybe it doesnā€™t taste bad but I am sensitive to sugar in my meat. My meat needs NO sugar, thank you. Sweet meat isnā€™t my thing. But there are so many such recipes, thankfully my country isnā€™t into those. (Glazed ham, crazy, never saw such an abomination and I am thankful for it. And my SO said everything had sugar in China when he was there for a month. Even bread and meat. They had to find a French bakery to get not sweet bread!)

And the recipe on the rub says itā€™s for 800g pork (and it has more than 20g carbs). I used the similar sized maxican one for months :smiley: It was flavorful, very spicy and salty, I couldnā€™t possibly use much anyway. So I donā€™t get much sugar from even the american one, I just wonder about the taste. But it has even a bit more salt than carbs and so much flavor, it probably wonā€™t be a problem like that. We will see when I open it in the future.

I would be shocked here. Some of the sausages has sugar, like 0.5-1g per 100g (part of it comes from paprika though ;))ā€¦ And some has zero (still some sugar due to paprika. itā€™s not easy to buy sausage not being red from paprika but why would I want that anyway?).

But I made my own sausage before. Not a proper one as I have no tool to stuff the meat into the salted intestine so I lost my patience quicklyā€¦ But it was fine. I donā€™t remember much, I need to make some again! I am spoiled as itā€™s so easy to buy various kinds of sausages with proper ingredients hereā€¦ (One should be careful with homemade stuff - but not in my homeā€¦ - as some people use 10 times as much maryoram as I can still handle. I use none but can handle a tiny bit if I must. But when the herb overpowers everything, thatā€™s bad.)

I usually just make meatballs, thatā€™s the same as my sausage just without its intestine cover. One kind badly needs its cover, it plays a big role but for the others, my meatballs are fine enough.

I donā€™t think the pig farm I get some smoked stuff here and there uses sugar, at least I donā€™t feel soā€¦ But they use huge amounts of salt. Itā€™s for preservation but it makes eating them harder. But some are better than others. I just cut off a piece and eat it when I want so I canā€™t soak it beforehand.