one of the worlds unheathiest foods

Slim Jims, One of the worlds unhealthiest foods

Adolph "Al" Levis, a Philadelphia high-school dropout, had a tidy little business making pickled pig's feet in his garage and selling them to local taverns during the Depression. Then he got a brilliant idea: make a pencil-thin sausage that was easier to fish out of a jar and eat with your fingers. To give his new product a classy image, he logoed it with a tuxedoed man in a top hat and named it Slim Jim.


Slim Jim's recipe changed during the 1960s. The new owner (now ConAgra -- purveyors of Healthy Choice® and many other brands) added chicken scraps (separated from the bones by Mr. Mudry’s machine) and apparently altered the spices. The new recipe is locked in a vault in Ohio.

The manufacturing process used to be hush-hush, too -- but in 1996 a New York Times reporter got a peek inside the Slim Jim factory in Garner, N.C.

Cow Heads

"Slim Jims begin as 60-pound frozen blocks of sliced meat labeled 'beef head meat,' which originates in the foreheads and cheeks of cattle," the reporter wrote. Ground up with the chicken scraps and mixed with 30 spices, these ingredients make a pink mush that is squirted into 7600-foot-long coils of sausage casing (presumably artificial, not intestinal), then fermented and baked for a total of 20 hours. In one of the last steps, the coils are sprayed with liquid smoke.

Despite all the secrecy, federal regulations require the world's favorite beef snack to carry an ingredients label. Slim Jims are made of "beef; mechanically separated chicken; water; corn syrup; soy protein concentrate; salt; spices; dextrose; paprika and paprika extractives; flavoring; hydrolyzed soy, corn, and wheat proteins; lactic acid starter culture; sodium nitrite."

Now here's why I think Slim Jims are "America’s Worst Food": Besides being made of cow heads, they get 80 percent of their calories from fat -- nearly a tenth of which is trans fat, notorious for clogging arteries. (The official Recommended Dietary Allowance of trans fat is zero.) In addition, a one-ounce Slim Jim contains 35 milligrams of cholesterol (one-eighth of the daily recommended limit) and a whopping 420 milligrams of sodium -- the amount in 35 potato chips. Overuse of sodium is a major culprit in high blood pressure, heart disease, and stroke.

The sodium nitrite in Slim Jims is not a problem. Most people get far more of that chemical from fruits and vegetables than from processed meats. It also inhibits growth of botulism and other harmful pathogens. And contrary to popular belief, it is not implicated in cancer. If you think so, you probably have it confused with nitrosamines, which are produced when processed meats are overcooked. Nitrosamines are the main reason you should never eat charred bacon.

In case you're wondering, Levis's original product is far more healthful than Slim Jims. Pickled pig's feet contain 17 percent less fat, only a trace of trans fat, 33 percent less cholesterol, and 62 percent less sodium.