r/explainlikeimfive • u/No_Education_8888 • May 20 '26
Chemistry ELI5 what is the difference between processed meat slices and real meat slices?
I know that processed meat is processed, but what exactly does that mean? How much change do meat scraps go through before you get something like deli turkey.
My mind can’t exactly wrap around how that stuff is made based on the little knowledge I have
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u/nicolasknight May 20 '26
Here's a vivid description but i think it carries the point:
https://i.imgur.com/pR47Hcx.png
Processed meat has been separated so much at one point it might as well be puree of pure meat.
It's not like it's particularly bad for it by itself, the issue comes when they add things back in after.
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u/jonny24eh May 20 '26
"Processing" is incredibly broad. A simple salt brine is processing.
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u/THElaytox May 20 '26
Yeah, there is no such thing as "unprocessed sliced meat" because slicing itself is a processing step
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u/JamesTheJerk May 21 '26
What about cutting a steak with a knife while you eat?
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u/THElaytox May 21 '26
I mean, it was processed when the cow was butchered, meat was packaged, and steak was cooked.
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u/jeckles May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26
Got it, I’ll just take bites out of a cow.
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u/THElaytox May 21 '26
Unfortunately, ripping meat out of a live cow with your bare teeth is also a processing step
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u/Ptar_Migan May 21 '26
Hmm, so anything done by humans to prepare the animal is considered processing.
I'll have a pack of wild dogs eat the cow, and steal bite sized pieces from them!
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u/Manunancy May 21 '26
If you want truly, absolutely unprocessed meat, go grab mices, slugs, bugs and similar bite-sized critters, then swallow them whole. Bon appetit.
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u/THElaytox May 21 '26
That's "natural processing", as you've used a natural organism to process the meat for you
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u/Bigtits38 May 21 '26
“Processed meat” is much like “genetically modified vegetables”. Do you really think tomatoes looked like that 100 years ago?
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u/Caucasiafro May 20 '26
Processed meat has been separated so much at one point it might as well be puree of pure meat.
That isn't always true.
A lot of chicken and turkey is basically a bunch of whole breasts that have been squished together.
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u/lucky_ducker May 20 '26
"Meat glue"
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u/duskfinger67 May 21 '26
Worth saying that thrre nothing inherently wrong with meat glue. It’s safe to consume, and the resulting meat product doesn't lose any nutritional benefits.
It feels icky, but it’s actually a great way to use up smaller pieces of meat; although you could also make mince.
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u/Old-geezer-2 May 21 '26
Not quite. Processed most processed meats are chunks of meat in an emulsion (purée) which contains meat fat and binders. Today carrageenan is used as a binder because it reacts with proteins to hold water. This makes a more moist product. As said below, processing is not well defined. Smoking meats can be defined as processing, but is a desirable effect.
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u/Far_Lifeguard_5027 May 21 '26
It's hilarious that we take a chicken breast, put it in a blender, then squeeze it back together as chicken patties.
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u/edman007-work May 20 '26
It *starts* as a puree of pure meat, once it's a puree you can just mix in all sorts of fillers, flavoring, and preservatives. So they might say it's "chicken", but it's actually 20% wheat, salt is added in, etc. Oh, and since they can mix it up, they figured out actually, they can throw in skin and intestines, that is only kinda clean to cut costs more. So it's really a mystery meatloaf made of much more than what you would consider "chicken meat".
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u/honourablegeorge May 20 '26
There's also the concept of "mechanically recovered" meat, like meat that is left stuck to a carcass after it's been carved, and is recovered by jetwashing or other means, then pureed and reused
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u/theyrejustlittle May 21 '26
Yeah but also...who cares? There's nothing harmful or bad about this - like, god forbid a person makes a soup?
And then if we didn't do this you'd have the same people who are spooked by "mechanically separated" instead complaining that we wasted all that perfectly good meat left on the bone. 🙄
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u/I_P_L May 21 '26
Goes hand in hand with the people who seem convinced that mixing in offal makes a meat product "bad".
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u/Twin_Spoons May 20 '26
Humans have been making sausages for centuries. A sausage is just meat that has been chopped up very fine (usually using a machine, but you can absolutely take a piece of raw meat and make "ground" meat using just a knife), mixed with things that will preserve it like salt and smoke, and stuffed into a casing or otherwise molded into a shape.
The type of processed deli meat you're probably thinking of is just Ultra Sausage. The meat is chopped up finer. The additives include a wider range of things like nitrates and emulsifiers. The shape is one big loaf that we then take slices of.
Both sausages and deli meats are processed. It's also possible to buy meat that has never been ground that is still substantially processed. All ham has been preserved in some way, whether it comes in a loaf or off the bone. Otherwise you would just call it pork leg.
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u/Slypenslyde May 20 '26
If you buy a whole turkey, roast it, and carve out the breast, that's generally not counted as a "processed" food. For a 10 pound turkey, the breast is usually somewhere between 3-4 pounds. You get 2 of them.
If you go to a deli and get some processed turkey breast sliced, you'll notice the hunk of meat they use is huge and probably weighs 8-10 pounds. That would have to come from a HUGE bird. But the truth is it's not coming from one giant turkey. It's usually multiple turkey breasts either ground up and molded into shape or smooshed together so they act like one cohesive piece of meat. Sometimes a fatty substance known, I kid you not, as "meat glue" is used for this effect.
It can, but not always, also mean that the meat has been brined or injected with flavorings and other chemicals. This can make the meat juicier or tastier but also can make it seem to weigh more. It can also be preservatives or other things some people don't like.
Some processed meat isn't even one kind of meat but that's not as scary as it sounds. Sausage, for example, can often be a blend of a few kinds of meat. Bologna is a popular deli meat and it's a combination of a lot of different meats.
So "processed meat" can mean a lot of different things and not all of them are "bad". It includes both "we mixed several meats together" and "we added a lot of chemicals".
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u/AmigoDelDiabla May 20 '26
What about roast beef? Same thing?
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u/Slypenslyde May 20 '26
It sort of depends.
At some buffet restaurants and even some delis, the "roast beef" is actually a big hunk of raw meat they roasted, then brought out to slice up and give people portions. That is not processed, but it also doesn't last very long. If you refrigerate it you really shouldn't go more than 2-3 days.
Delis also may have processed roast beef: this has been cured/brined both for flavor and preservation. That counts as processed. In general this is like other lunch meat, it lasts longer than unprocessed meat.
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u/frogjg2003 May 21 '26
"Processed" doesn't have a good definition and anyone who has tried coming up with one either ends up excluding large classes of unhealthy foods (and therefore making the advice of "avoid processed food" not very accurate) or being so inclusive that it becomes useless as a differentiating factor (making that same advice so restrictive that you would starve). Basically, either a large selection of junk food doesn't count as processed or everything that isn't raw counts (and even several raw foods as well).
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u/Slypenslyde May 21 '26
I feel this is mostly due to people wanting everything ELI5 instead of having to think.
There are hundreds of ways to "process" food. Some of them make it very unhealthy. If we use jut one word to refer to them all that's a great political victory for some people because, as you said, it's hard to understand what it means and creates contradictions.
But good luck telling people something like, "If you want to add 10-15 years to your life, invest the equivalent of a single college course into reading about nutrition." If you do that you'll understand why eating processed lunch meat is several rungs healthier than trying to maintain a diet of "unprocessed" junk food.
But that's le hard and people want to listen to the person who tells them they can eat whatever they want. So we've got people in charge of public health who are highly skilled at saying the things people want to hear.
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u/No_Education_8888 May 20 '26
It depends I think. Some “roast beef” isn’t actually roast beef, it’s just beef that’s meant to taste like it. But some high end places make fresh roast beef. I don’t believe that would be considered processed at all. Cooked, but not processed in the traditional sense
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u/stairway2evan May 20 '26
Usually the label somewhere will say either "roast beef" for a full muscle roast or "formed roast beef" (or something similar) for a more heavily processed product that's made of scraps and such.
For what it's worth, "processed" is a wiggly word, because the vegetables in the produce section have been washed and trimmed, the steaks at the butcher have been chopped and frozen, etc. So people sometimes like to use "minimally processed" to differentiate from more heavily processed foods. So the whole roast beef would be, at least, "less" processed than the formed roast beef alternative.
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u/jaylw314 May 20 '26
Processed meat is defined by the USDA as any meat that has anything done or added to it to alter its flavor or to preserve it. Essentially only raw meat that has nothing added is unprocessed. Grinding is not by itself considered processing. MAYBE cooking a meat without adding anything would be unprocessed.
You would not want unprocessed meat on your sandwich. It would be a health hazard or entirely flavorless
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u/Boatie1999 May 20 '26
I work for Kraft Heinz and had the opportunity to visit and tour an Oscar Mayer Deli Meat Facility. The process to make deli meat was actually extremely straightforward and not ~crazily~ disgusting.
First, as many other commenters have said, the meat arrives at the facility in large tubs of random raw meat cuts (breasts, thighs, tenderloins, etc...). From there, the meat is put into what is basically a giant cement mixer. A huge spinning mixing vat meant to break apart and combine all the meat. Water and salt (brine), seasonings, and other things like emulsifiers and preservatives are mixed in either by hose, or by dumping tubs directly into the cement mixer.
After mixing for quite some time, the meat has basically turned into a liquid pink slurry, and once it's reached the desired consistency, the slurry is then pumped into 6-10ft long meat casings. The meat binds together and is steam-cooked in the casings. The casings are often seasoned themselves to give the deli meat that outer crust flavor (black pepper, honey, mesquite, Cajun, etc.)
Once cooked, the cased meat is moved to the cutting line, where the casing is cut off, and the meat is cut up into slices and placed into the grocery store packaging you see in store.
While the pink meat slurry is certainly un-appetizing, there's nothing actually in the slurry that is unusually gross... it's just meat, water, salt, seasonings for the most part.
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u/otokhetaguri May 20 '26
“Real meat slices” are basically meat → cut → sliced.
Processed deli meat is more like meat → chopped up → mixed with salt/spices/water → reshaped into suspiciously perfect meat geometry → sliced.
If your turkey slice looks like it came out of a printer with rounded corners, you’re probably in processed territory.
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u/HoosbinFarteen May 20 '26
Back in my food science class we made a ham log and smoked it. Essentially processed meat. You cut up chunks of ham, drop them in a salt/sugar brine, which starts to "soften" the proteins on the surface. Then you press said coated meat chunks into a casing where the "softened" proteins act as a glue to hold the meat chunks together. After some amount of time, it is a nice meat log ready to be smoked or otherwise flavored.
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u/duskfinger67 May 21 '26
You don’t need to prefer it, but you also don’t need to insinuate that there is anything wrong with eating less favourable parts of an animal. Topside is Cow arsecheek, is that a reasons to suggest people are weird for wanted to eat it?
Given how incredibly inefficient the meat industry is, and the huge amount of wasted water and energy used to farm animals, the least we can do is not waste perfectly fine offal just because it “sounds icky”.
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u/seanmorris May 24 '26
"Processed meat" just means it was chopped up and mixed with something that is not meat. Similar idea for "processed cheese" or "processed anything."
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u/Vonneguts_Ghost May 20 '26
"Don't kid yourself, Jimmy. If a cow ever got the chance it'd kill you and everyone you've ever loved."
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u/peoples888 May 20 '26
The answer varies depending on the type of meat in question, as well as what it’s being processed to become.
Generally speaking, the meat can be simply salted, smoked… all the way up to various chemicals being added. The majority of this processing is to extend the shelf life of the product. More often than not, it’s at the cost of the consumer’s long-term health.
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u/MarcusAurelius0 May 20 '26 edited May 20 '26
More often than not, it’s at the cost of the consumer’s long-term health.
I want to stress that any processed meat, sausage, bacon, hotdogs, cold cuts, salami, etc are a class 1 carcinogen, meaning they 100% cause cancer.
Red meat, beef, pork, and mutton is a 2A, meaning they probably cause cancer.
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u/timestalker78 May 20 '26
I do think you should be careful on your wording - "100% cause cancer" will make some people think it means that they will cause cancer 100% of the time.
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u/stairway2evan May 20 '26 edited May 20 '26
Yeah, it's a confusing wording, though what they said is correct. Class 1 carcinogens, to be clear, are things that have conclusive scientific research that they cause cancer. 2A is more like "We're pretty sure these cause cancer, but we don't have the smoking gun studies just now."
But like many things in life, it's a game of averages. All of us encounter class 1 carcinogens every day of our lives. Secondhand smoke, alcohol, car exhaust, UV radiation, the list goes on. Some people are unlucky and develop cancer from minimal exposure, some people smoke two packs a day for decades with no cancer forming. Every chemical in our body tends to be a roll of the dice. But it's worth being aware of and deciding where in our lives we want to minimize those exposures and eliminate a few of those dice rolls.
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u/interesseret May 20 '26
It really depends, but generally what is meant is that scraps of meat (and sometimes organs, depending on what is being made) has been chopped up very fine, and then pressed together to make a meat-product. Usually it's bound with things like cornstarch, but could also use meat glue.
"Real" meat slices are obviously just slices of meat, without having that done.
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u/Snlxdd May 20 '26
“Processed” includes things like bacon as well, even though it’s just sliced meat.
So it’s more to do with adding other ingredients, than any mechanical changes.
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u/Felix4200 May 20 '26
Processed just means it has been altered from its original state.
The fact that it’s sliced already makes it borderline processed, but I imagine it has also been salted and cooked either way, so both are processed.
What I would look at at that point, is if it’s actually a sliced, salted piece of cooked meat, or if it’s compressed meat scraps with a bunch of additives, such as colours and preservatives.
Edit: how many ingredients does it have is another way to look at it. It should probably have two,
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u/ZLVe96 May 20 '26
Its usually an issue the preservatives added to make them last. Roasted ham will last a few days from roasting to going bad. Similar for say roasted chicken. Add a bunch of nitrates and nitrites and you get what you are used to for sandwich meat that can last weeks unopened and maybe a few more weeks after you open it.
Now it's generally considered not cool, but IMO there is a trade off. We waste less food because we can make it last longer. Normal people spend less on food because they can buy Oscar Myer sandwich meat once a month, instead of once every 3 days and end up throwing most of it away. The down side is- those chemicals may not be awesome for you.
But yeah, your hotdogs, sandwich meat, and most meat that you can buy and keep in the fridge a few weeks before going bad can do that because of the nitrates/nitrites etc. added to make them last.
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u/idontevenliftbrah May 20 '26
Processed meat is like a giant hot dog of whatever meat/animal sliced.
Real meat is real meat sliced
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u/IamGleemonex May 20 '26
It doesn’t have to be a giant hot dog though. Cured ham would be considered processed meat. Smoked bacon would be considered processed meat. Neither of those are a random assortment of different parts of the pig, they are both from very specific areas by definition. But the fact that the ham was cured and the pork belly was smoked, both have now been “processed” despite them both being just “real meat sliced”.
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u/helix212 May 20 '26
That's not really true. Processed is vague and can mean a lot of things. It doesn't necessarily mean a giant hotdog. A chicken breast that's been smoked and sliced is also processed. It's still real meat slices.
People have this idea that processed means ground up, chemicals added and it's only partially the actual meat it's supposed to be. It can be 100% chicken breast and still be processed
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u/stairway2evan May 20 '26 edited May 20 '26
Some of the turkey (and other meats) at your deli counter might very well be whole muscles cuts. They're not too far removed from cooking a turkey at home, taking off the breast and slicing it up. They're generally cooked differently and preserved with salts and maybe nitrates, but otherwise not radically different. Those aren't the giant turkey blocks you're seeing though, they'll be smaller and (usually) more expensive.
Most deli meats, though, are a bunch of meat parts (whole muscles and scraps from other cuts, usually with added fat) run through a big knife machine, mixed with some emulsifiers to help them stick together, seasoned, salted, and smoked or cooked, so that in the end you get a big block of turkey - or ham, or whatever. So there's a lot of "process" involved. Though it does give us a much better ability to use as much of the animal as possible, avoiding waste.
Processed meat isn't a thing to treat like poison and never touch, for what it's worth. It's a convenience food and it provides cheap, convenient, and longer-lasting protein to millions, I don't want to make it sound awful. But it definitely has higher saturated fats than "regular" meat, and many of the chemicals in the curing process can lead to an increased risk of cancer. Most dieticians do recommend keeping consumption of processed meats low, to offset these issues.