What Are The Least-Processed Meats You Can Buy At The Deli?

Sometimes, we're craving a sub or hoagie piled high with our favorite meats, cheeses, and veggies for lunch. When shopping for that meal, should we stop at the deli, or just pick up a few packages of whatever lunch meat is on sale? If you opt for the deli counter instead of, say,  making your own simple and delicious lunch meat, do you know the healthiest cold cuts to purchase?

Although the deli counter has the freshest meats, you should avoid processed cuts like salami, bologna, pepperoni, and pastrami. Why? These deli meats have been preserved by curing, salting, or adding chemicals. In 2015, the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) categorized these meats as a source of carcinogen — a cancer-causing agent. This group determined that consuming these foods could lead to heart disease, colorectal cancer, high blood pressure, and diabetes.

But there are better options at the deli counter, including lean roast turkey, chicken, ham, and roast beef. What makes these choices better? For starters, they haven't been processed as much as the cured meats.

When selecting turkey, chicken, ham, and roast beef, choose the brands offering the least amount of sodium. Look for labels indicating salt-free, sodium-free, low-sodium, or very low sodium. Why? High sodium intake has been associated with high blood pressure. Hypertension increases a person's risk of developing kidney disease, cardiovascular diseases, obesity, gastric cancer, Meniere's disease,  and osteoporosis.

If your favorite supermarket doesn't have a separate deli counter, be sure to read labels on prepackaged lunch meats. Ideally, you should be able to pronounce the ingredients. Also, if that list has more than five ingredients, choose something else.

You also want to avoid artificial colors and flavors and stick with with nitrate-free lunch meats. Keep in mind, though, that "nitrate-free" actually means there are fewer nitrates and nitrites present, but not totally absent (this is also the deceptive effect behind "uncured" bacon labels). Also, if a deli meat has been processed, there are nitrates present. When you eat these meats, your stomach turns them into nitrites, which may form carcinogens in your body.