Chicken Luncheon Meat

Food · Protein · Food, Typed Supps

Twenty grams of protein on 1.2 g of fat — and still processed meat.

Stage by stage

Very lean (The slice): 1.2 g of fat per 100 g — around a twentieth of a pork sausage.
Protein density (Muscle): 20 g of protein on 115 calories, the best ratio on this counter.
Sodium unchanged (Circulation): 760 mg per 100 g — the fat came out and the salt did not.
Group 1 (Colon): Classification follows the curing, so leanness changes nothing about it.

Timing

Nothing to time. As with all processed meat, the exposure that matters is how often rather than when.

Time to effect

Per 100 g: 20 g of protein on 115 calories, and 760 mg of sodium.
Per 50 g daily: The same 18% relative colorectal cancer risk estimate applies.

Allergens

None of the fourteen major allergens. May contain: Gluten, Milk, Mustard, Soya, Sulphites. Derived from what this food is, not from a product label.

Eating patterns

Fits: Keto, Low-FODMAP. Depends on the product: Halal, Kosher, Gluten-free.

Satiety

195 on the satiety index, where white bread is 100 — very high. Modelled from the Holt et al. (1995) measurements.

Environmental footprint

9.9 kg CO2e and 660 litres of freshwater per kg, matched to "Poultry meat" in Poore & Nemecek (2018), Science 360.

Cost band

Mid — roughly £7 per kg, as a band midpoint rather than a price.

Key nutrients

Protein
Niacin
Vitamin D

Nutrition per 100g

Calories: 115
Protein: 20g
Carbohydrate: 4.4g
of which sugars: 0.2g
Fat: 1.2g
of which saturated: 0.4g
Fibre: 0.2g
Sodium: 760mg

Food vs. supplement

This is the entry that makes the classification legible. Something with a twentieth of the fat of a pork sausage carries the identical Group 1 status, because what IARC assessed was salting, curing, fermenting and smoking — not fat.

Kitchen tip

If convenience is the appeal, tinned tuna and leftover roast chicken do the same job for a sandwich and sit outside the classification.

Common myth

“I switched to lean deli meat, so I’ve dealt with the processed meat issue.” In reality: You have dealt with the saturated fat, genuinely — 0.39 g per 100 g against a pork sausage’s 7.87 g is a large real improvement. The processed meat classification is unchanged, because it follows the curing and preserving rather than the fat. The sodium is unchanged too, at 760 mg per 100 g, which is a general pattern in reduced-fat reformulation.