Interpretive Summary: Processed meat in the diet: general nutritional profile–protein quality and micronutrients

By: Mark Wesley Schilling, Sawyer Wyatt Smith, Oladayo Emmanuel Apalowo, Ryen Comey, Shangshang Wang, Thu Dinh

Implications

• Meat provides high-quality protein with excellent bioavailability and a complete amino acid profile.
• Meat is highly perishable, but salting, curing, smoking, cooking, drying, fermentation, or a combination of these processes, as well as advanced antimicrobial and antioxidant ingredient solutions, are implemented to slow or inhibit microbial growth. Many of these techniques have been practiced for thousands of years and have been foundational to the safe storage and utilization of animal protein throughout history.
• Processed meats are part of a healthy diet, but they should not be consumed in excess to avoid overconsumption of fat and sodium.
• In developing countries, the availability of processed meats with extended shelf-life helps prevent undernutrition and malnutrition since the digestible indispensable amino acid scores for processed meats are greater than 100%, indicating that processed meats fully meet human amino acid requirements.

Nutritional Quality of Meat

Processed meats are a significant source of proteins, indispensable amino acids (IAA), A and B vitamins, zinc, phosphorus, iron, and several micronutrients (Table 1). Some public health entities recommend eliminating red meat and processed meats from the diet. Not only are such recommendations not based on sound science, but they also lead to unintended repercussions among vulnerable populations since over 1.5 billion people worldwide suffer from iron deficiency and the heme-iron in red meat is one of the most bioavailable sources of iron in the diet (Kavanaugh et al., 2025).

Read the full article in Animal Frontiers: Current Topics in Meat Processing.