Pork

Generalities and classification

Pork is one of the "white meats" because, after slaughter, it takes on a much lighter color than that of "red meats":

beef, horse, sheep etc. and of the "black meats" or game: fallow deer, wild boar, deer, hare, pheasant etc; together with the pig, they fall into the same category: chicken, turkey, rabbit, veal, lamb, young goat etc. Some authors, however, include the pig in the red meat group, especially as regards the meat cuts of adult specimens and those preserved.

Pork REQUIRES a complete cooking, that is, it reaches the heart of the food; this is necessary for two reasons:

Pork, like other white meats, reaches its maximum organoleptic and gustatory properties with cooking; cooking the pork a little would mean penalizing its taste.
Pork is subject to parasitosis (which affects the live animal) and bacterial contamination (during slaughter); only complete cooking eliminates the harmfulness.

Pork can be classified according to 4 methods:

Age of the slaughtered animal: pork takes on different characteristics depending on the diet of the beast and the development of muscle mass. It follows that the meat of a suckling pig (porchetta of up to 3 months, 25kg in weight), compared to that of an adult pig (110-180kg), is remarkably different both in terms of consistency (more tender) and taste ( less intense).
Training method: pigs can be raised at home or industrial level; regarding the latter type, they are further differentiated: the intensive, the extensive and the organic. Home breeding produces better quality pork, while intensive industrial farming tends to offer a less appreciable product (in addition to requiring a greater use of drugs). On the other hand, extensive industrial breeding represents a good compromise between profitability and production costs, while the pork obtained from organic farms (despite being of very good quality) stands out for the definitely higher costs and not always sustainable. The difference between the 4 types of pork mainly concerns the taste and the quantity of muscular water (greater in intensively reared animals).
Normal feeding or overfeeding: pig breeding can be aimed at slaughtering a heavy or light animal; while the heavy pig is older and heavily supercharged (it can reach almost 180-200 kg in weight), the light one rarely exceeds 100-110 kg. The heavy pig is therefore much fatter and is destined to the production of preserved meat (sausages and salted meats), on the contrary, the light one is the primary source of fresh meat ready for consumption.
Pork size: as with all other animals, a distinction of the various sizes is also used in the pig. After the slaughter, the animal is then divided into several parts; below we will list them all, but without going into too much detail:

Head : divided into thin, bones and fat; the head of the pig is used both for food production and for the production of protein meal for zootechnical use
Throat and pillow : they consist of the fat of the section between the head and the shoulder; these parts are essential in the packaging of raw and cooked sausages but can also be used for the production of a very fine salami.
Shoulder : from this portion of the pig is obtained a meat suitable for the production of a cooked salami called "cooked shoulder" (very similar to cooked ham); it can also be made into fesa (for salami) and muscle (for cotechino, pot salami, frankfurters, etc.).
Pancetta : it is the front part of the rib; it can be distinguished in a lean part and in a fat part. The fat one is ideal for the production of rolled pancetta, stretched pancetta, etc., while the "lean" pancetta is a classic cut of fresh fat pork.
Thigh : it is the most prized pork cut. It is used for the production of cured ham, cooked ham or even salami, but it does not look bad if broken down into the various muscles and used as fresh lean pork.
Coppa or capocollo : properly cleaned, it is one of the ingredients of salami and cooked ham; they too are a fatty piece of fresh pork.
Loin or loin : it is divided into three parts: carré, loin and capocollo (the latter already described). The carré is generally dedicated to the production of chops, while the loin is intended for the production of boneless steaks; both are to be framed among fresh and lean pork.
Paws : they are emptied and used as a container for the zampone.
Fat : subdivided into lard, lard, perirenal fat (or lard), hard back, throat fat. They are all used for the preparation of raw and cooked sausages except the suet which, after processing, is destined to become lard.
Rind : is the skin of the pig previously cleaned and scraped. If ground, it becomes part of cotechino and zampone, while the excess becomes animal jelly. The rind is a fatty cut as it includes subcutaneous fat; eliminating the latter, the rind would not be excessively caloric.
Offal : they constitute (along with the rind, bones, blood, bristles, nails and visceral fat) the fifth quarter of the pig and have totally different applications; offal is to be evaluated one by one as it has completely heterogeneous nutritional characteristics. On average, offal is a pork rich in cholesterol, but not necessarily very caloric. What advances after slaughtering and the production of cured meats is used for the production of animal flours.

Hygienic aspects

As mentioned above, fresh pork is a white meat that requires complete cooking; the cured meats and sausages CRUDI, instead, are produced with processes that prevent the proliferation of bacteria during the entire conservative period, even if this does not exclude that the meat can be infested from before or infected during slaughter (which is why cured meats and raw sausages are totally contraindicated in the diet of pregnant women).

From a microbiological point of view, pork tends to be prone to bacterial contamination of: Salmonella and Yersinia enterocolica ; moreover, considering the propensity to parasitosis of the animal in question, it cannot be excluded that its meat may contain: Trichinella spiralis and Toxoplasma gondii .

Let us again remember that the only method to guarantee the healthiness of pork is total cooking, that is, it reaches the heart of the food and exceeds a temperature of 70 ° C.

Nutritional characteristics

FRESH pork is a product of animal origin that contains an excellent quantity of high biological value proteins and brings a variable lipid ration especially based on the type of pig (light or heavy) and the designated size; the fatty cuts of heavy pork can reach and exceed 300kcal (for example fresh bacon), while the lean cuts of light pork do not exceed 100-140kcal (eg leg or loin).

Being a product of animal origin, pork contains cholesterol and fatty acids (which make up triglycerides) mainly of the saturated type. NB . Both saturated fatty acids and cholesterol represent an unfavorable element for cholesterol metabolism, since they tend to increase the bad one circulating in the blood (LDL cholesterol); this means that, in the case of hypercholesterolemia, pork (but not only that) is a food to be consumed in moderation.

Pork supplies good amounts of water-soluble vitamins such as: thiamine, riboflavin and niacin, and there are plenty of useful mineral salts to the body such as: iron, potassium and phosphorus.

Recipes

Pork chops stuffed with mushrooms and cheese on a bed of apples

Alice, our PersonalCooker, is on air on MypersonaltrainerTv to explain you step by step how to transform "simple" pork chops into an irresistible dish even for the most reluctant to embrace new culinary trends.