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COPYRIGHT 2006 Australian Consumers' Association
Who's never had a meat pie? Australians are the world's biggest consumers of them; they're a cultural icon. But would they keep that exalted position if most of us knew what's really in them?
HOW MUCH MEAT?
To find out how much meat there really is in a so-called meat pie we tested most of the national brands that you can buy either frozen from supermarkets or hot and ready to eat at sports venues or from service stations. We also included meat pies from the JESTERS and MICHEL'S PATISSERIE chains, which now operate in most states.
There's no chemical test specifically for 'meat'. What's measured is protein, and the meat content (as a percentage of the whole pie, not just of the filling) is calculated from this. But some of this 'meat' might never have had a pulse or worn a fur coat because manufacturers can include soy protein in the filling (as long as it's declared on the label)--and this also counts as 'meat' in the calculation. So we also measured the amount of soy protein in the filling. Removing this from the overall protein value gives a more realistic estimate of the actual meat content. The good news is that the most soy protein we found was 7% of the filling, and more than half the pies had at most only a trace.
JESTERS Stockmans, MRS MAC'S Good Eating Beef and ELMSBURY (from ALDI) have the most meat--it's a third or more of their ingredients. They're also among the pies in this test with the least fat and salt (see Table 1, page 11, for details). And with ELMSBURY you get a triple whammy--it's also one of the cheapest (along with HOMEBRAND from WOOLWORTHS/SAFEWAY and COLES Savings). But if you like a pie when you're at the footy, the top-selling brands you're likely to find there--FOUR 'N TWENTY, SARGENTS and HERBERT ADAMS--all...
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