WDHB Public Health Nurse Marianne Vine and Wanganui's Imlay Butchers Shop have formed a successful partnership founded on the need to create a 'healthy' sausage for community sausage sizzles.
 
Wanganui's annual SKIP (Strategy for Kids, Information for Parents) Children's Day event held at Springvale Park every March sparked the idea of trying to find a healthier sausage. The Children’s Day committee is committed to only giving away healthy food at the event.
 
Mrs Vine says they discussed the idea with Imlay Butchers Shop manager Stephen Weekly who set out to create a sausage with a high content of beef and vegetables.
 
“We trialled it with children at Health Promoting schools (schools that promote and practice healthy lifestyles) and following a little tinkering with the recipe, Stephen’s sausages got the thumbs up from the children doing the tastings,”  Mrs Vine says.
 
“Involving children has been an important part of the process. Not only have we developed a healthier product for them to eat but we’ve raised awareness about how marketing can be confusing and that reading and comparing nutritional information on packaging is important.
 
“Most sausages are high in fat and salt but this healthier option sausage fits the 10/10/400 rule of less that 10grams of fat, less than 10 grams of sugar and less than 400mg of salt (sodium) per 100gms of product.”
 
Mrs Vine says while fat is needed to bind ingredients and allow the sausage to cook inside, the Children’s Day committee and Mr Weekly wanted to create a sausage that had less fat and salt.
 
The Imlay Butchers Shop sausage is 40 percent beef, 40 percent veges, 10 percent water, 8 percent meal and 2 percent onions and herbs.
 
She says 1550 healthier sausages were given away at this year’s Children’s Day event and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Everyone who received a sausage was given a feedback card to place in a box. Of the 714 responses received, 85 percent were positive.
 
SKIP paid for the sausages and donated the 450 left over to Health Promoting schools in Whanganui.
 
“As a Public Health nurse I’m delighted we now have a healthier option available for families,” Mrs Vine says. “It will go some way towards reducing the obesity risk for children and their families which is a national health priority. Sausage sizzles are an entrenched part of our culture so to have a product that gets beef and vegetables into children is wonderful.”