Before putting the cured meats under the magnifying glass to analyse their positive qualities, let's take a look at the tables compiled by the National Research Institute for Food and Nutrition, a precious tool not just for those who work in the sector, but for anyone interested in intelligent nutrition who wishes to balance the flavour and nutritional value of each foodstuff.

All the available foodstuffs have been divided into categories related to the specific functions these nutrients have for the human organism. We can clearly see that each foodstuff is necessary in the right proportions. And so, no exaggerations in the sense of too much or none at all. The golden rule is to have a very varied diet, never strict or monotonous, but imaginatively rich. And a special word of advice from the expert nutritionists: watch out for saturated fatty acids and cholesterol. But we'll come back to this later on. Let's return to our cured meats and see what the laboratory analyses say about them. The tables speak clearly: high protein content, actually higher than that of other meats, percentage of lipids and calorie content highly advantageous in comparison to other foods. And so, for a snack or a quick lunch, a roll with ham or salami is the perfect answer. It is nourishing and, above all, much more satisfying than other snacks, without being any more fattening. Cured meats all contain vitamin B1 which helps to transform what we eat into energy. As well as this, pork contains five times as much selenium as other meats (selenium being a mineral salt with a powerful antioxidant capacity).