Pork Medallions

[hairnightmare17]

Watched an advert for pork medallions this am. It claimed to be 'just as healthy as chicken.'

Is this true? I thought (regardless of fat content) it is a red meat and therefore we should be limiting it.

Why should we limit the amount of red meat we eat?

It probably means just as healthy in terms of fat?
Research changes all the time though. People view healthy diets in different ways.

Pork is white meat

Isn't there a link between red meat and bowel cancer?

Pork isn't unhealthy and there is no need to limit it anyway. Most people should eat more.
www.beefmagazine.com/blog/red-meat-nature-s-multi-vitamin-says-study

It is just as healthy as chicken. Why do you think it isn't?

I really thought pork was red meat.

I'm not sure the majority of the chicken we eat (pumped full of antibiotics and so on) should be considered a benchmark of healthy eating.

Wasn't it processed meat like sausages and bacon that we were warned against recently?

And that was reported in a very overblown way.

Some good diagrams here if you scroll down

To take an analogy, think of banana skins. They definitely can cause accidents, explains Phillips, but in practice this doesn’t happen very often (unless you work in a banana factory). And the sort of harm you can come to from slipping on a banana skin isn’t generally as severe as, say, being in a car accident.

But under a hazard identification system like IARC’s, ‘banana skins’ and ‘cars’ would come under the same category – they both definitely do cause accidents.

When you cook pork, the meat comes out white-ish.
Ergo it is white meat.

Theres no proven link between red meat and bowel cancer, & its more likely to be eating large amounts of preserved meats that are the problem. The chemicals they use are pretty harsh.

I really thought pork was red meat

It is. The amount of myoglobin in animal muscles determines the color of meat. Pork is classified a red meat because it contains more myoglobin than chicken or fish. When fresh pork is cooked, it becomes lighter in color, but it is still a red meat. Pork is classed as "livestock" along with veal, lamb and beef.

When you cook pork, the meat comes out white-ishErgo it is white meat

No. Veal comes out whiteish, but it is red meat. It's not about the colour of the cooked meat.

Pork is red meat, not white, as it's livestock. But there are incredibly healthy cuts of pork, though not recommended to have them every day.

The cancer thing is less clear as it also includes processed meats.

Any advert saying "healthy" without being more specific should be taken with a pinch of salt, anyway. It's far too vague to have any useful meaning by itself.

Ah! These explanations are v helpful. I remember googling years ago re. what type of meat pork was - red/white and being disappointed to learn it was red.

I do understand that processed meat is the most linked up to cancer but I thought that we still needed to limit unprocessed red meat too.

I get that chicken is meddled with. I just try to do the best I can, with the budget I have and the dietary preferences the family have. Like a food based juggling act.

Why do they say red meat and white meat then?
Why not say livestock and poultry?
No wonder people don't know what's what!

We have adverts here that say “Pork - The Other White Meat”

A lean cut of pork like medallions will have a similar percentage of fat as a lean cut of chicken like breast. However, the idea that the types/cuts of meat which are higher in fat are intrinsically "unhealthy" is based on erroneous and outdated diet advice which demonises fat and says it causes heart disease and makes you fat - neither of which are true - and I suspect that's where the "lean pork is healthy" message is coming from.

Is pork actually red meat...?

As for whether it’s healthy. That depends on who you ask, is it? And also on how much you eat!

My DH grew up eating pork products. I’ve been raised to think that pork should be avoided. (But not for health reasons). I’ve had bacon a few times as an adult and that was nice but I prefer other kinds of meat...

All depends who you ask. There's the issue about whether or not saturated animal fat causes heart disease. Also whether or not red meat causes bowel cancer.

Trouble is that it's probably almost impossible to do good quality research because that would involve people reporting exactly how much they ate over a number of years and comparing heart diesease/cancer rates while controlling for allsorts of other factors that can be relevant, such as other dietary intake, smoking, alcohol consumption, income and others.

But I wonder if there is a significant difference in either bowel cancer or heart disease amongst populations who eat a relatively large amount of pork such as the US or Europe, compared with countries where a large percentage of the population are Muslim or Jewish and hence pork consumption is very low? Even then you may not know whether these diseases are due to pork consumption or some other factor.

www.google.co.uk/search?q=is+pork+red+or+white+meat

Pork is labelled "The Other White Meat" in many US states because on appearance, it seems the tread the line between white and red meat, and is a healthy alternative to Beef.😊

Barbara

According to this the countries with the highest rates of heart disease are Russia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Argentina. The ones with the lowest rates are France, Australia, Switzerland, Japan and Israel.

I don’t know enough about the eating habits of all these countries to even try drawing any conclusions....

www.healthline.com/health/heart-disease/statistics#4

But according to this a Japan and Russia consume about the same amount of pork Per Capita. So whilst pork consumption might obviously be a factor...

www.pork.org/facts/stats/u-s-pork-exports/world-per-capita-pork-consumption/

This is on their Facebook page -

I want it to be true. It just doesn't address the red meat and cancer aspect of chicken versus pork.

I guess if it is the same in terms of fat then it shouldn't contribute any more towards heart disease than chicken would.

Here's guidance from nhs re. Red meat consumption

www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Goodfood/Pages/red-meat.aspx