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White meat: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 10:35, 21 November 2015

White meatorlight meat refers to the lighter-colored meat of poultry as contrasted with dark meat. In a more general sense, white meat may also refer to any lighter-colored meat, as contrasted with red meats like beef and some types of game.

White meat is made up of fast-twitch muscle fibres, while red, or dark meat is made up of muscles with fibres that are slow-twitch.^[1]

Given nutritional concerns, meat producers are eager to have their products considered white meat, and the United States National Pork Board has positioned their product as "Pork. The Other White Meat", alongside poultry and fish; however, meats which are red when raw and turn white on cooking, like pork, are categorized by the United States Department of Agriculture as red meats if the myoglobin level reaches above 65%.^[2][3] This categorization is controversial as some types of fish, such as tuna, are red when raw and turn white when cooked; similarly, certain types of poultry that are sometimes grouped as "white meat" are actually "red" when raw, such as duck and goose. In contrast, the USDA considers all meat from mammals to be "red meat."^[4]

In Israel, where Jewish dietary laws are popularly practiced, forbidding the consumption of pork, "white meat" is the accepted euphemism for pork.^[5]

Within poultry, there are two types of meats—white and dark. The different colors are based on the different locations and uses of the muscles. Dark meats occur in the legs, which are used to support the weight of the animals while they move. These muscles are designed to develop endurance for long-term use and contain a large amount of myoglobin, allowing the muscle to use oxygen more efficiently for aerobic respiration. In contrast the white meat, generally found within the breasts of the birds, are used for quick bursts of power which requires little of the meat-darkening myoglobin. Note that this holds for ground-based birds like chicken and turkeys – birds which use their chest muscles for sustained flight (such as geese and ducks) have dark meat throughout their bodies.^[6] Dark meat contains 2.64 times more saturated fat than white meat, per gram of protein.^[7] One commentator has pointed out that dark meat contains more vitamins,^[8] while another has stated the two meats are nearly identical in nutritional value.^[9]