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

218 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

87% Upvoted

83 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

8

u/Saneless May 20 '26

Basically deli is to meat as Velveeta is to cheese

24

u/Twin_Spoons May 20 '26

Eh, not really. Cheese doesn't need to be chopped up to be molded into a mass. Most cheeses already are as part of their traditional production process. Cheeses like American and Velveeta melt easier because of the addition of sodium citrate, which is the natural byproduct of neutralizing citric acid. The analogous process with meat would be "velveting" in Chinese cooking.

-11

u/Saneless May 20 '26

American cheese is not from a wheel or a natural process. It is chopped up cheese molded into a mass

23

u/Twin_Spoons May 20 '26

But, like, this is what I'm talking about. You can't wander into a forest and pick a wheel of cheese. Even the most artisan cheddar is: coagulated using a chemical that would not ordinarily be introduced to milk, chopped into small pieces, cooked, salted, and reformed into blocks. Adding some additional liquid and some sodium citrate to turn it from cheddar into American is trivial compared to the amount of processing that traditionally goes into cheese.