Fast Food Pork in North America

Journal Title: Current Investigations in Agriculture and Current Research - Year 2018, Vol 2, Issue 4

Abstract

Try to remember the last time you bought a pork item at a fast food restaurant in North America. Not a ham sandwich from Subway or a breakfast sandwich from Tim Hortons but a pork burger from MacDonald's, Wendy's, A&W, or Burger King. They have tried in the past offering the McRib from McDonalds but the closest permanent pork menu item, is an offer of bacon to act as a flavor accent but no real pork burgers. Now in 2018, we have the pulled pork sandwich which comes lathered in BBQ sauce, which actually might make a lasting impression but is it really a pork product or a sauce product? (Figure 1). Pork vs Beef Burger, What's the Difference FAT. Ground pork is relatively cheap when compared to beef burgers, sometimes almost half the price of regular ground hamburger (beef burger) but pork burgers have not made much progress into the fast menu in North America. Maybe it is the amount or type of fat? In Japan, they describe a pork and beef burger mixture as `aibiki niku'. The mixture can reach 50/50 and the flavour is described as being `un-detectable' from standard 100% beef burger. If it is 100% beef, then it is often labelled as `100% Wagyu' beef burger. Fat is assumed to be the main influence on flavour and beef has much less polyunsaturated fat (PUFA) than pork. Beef products typically have 15% more saturated fat (SFA), 7% less monounsaturated fat (MUFA) and 8% less polyunsaturated fat (PUFA) than pork [1] because Beef cattle naturally convert much of the MUFA and PUFA in their feed to SFA, by bacteria in the rumen. The USDA list the typical 28g beef burger of having 0.4g of PUFA and 6.2g of SFA. Pigs, being monogastrics, do not have this conversion ability in their gut, so the composition of their fat reflects the type of fats in their diet. An attempt to get the lipid profile in pork to mirror the profile of beef has been tried. The premise is that by feeding pigs a diet high in SFA fat (eg. beef tallow), pigs would have a more beefy flavour but the experimental evidence shows that when feeding pigs either, beef tallow, coconut oil, or palm oil, which all have a much higher SFA content than normal pig feed, the PUFA to SFA ratio stays relatively the same in the pork [2]. For instance, feeding 5% coconut oil increased the SFA content ~3% [3] but the fat in a typical 28g ground pork burger is still ~1.6g of PUFA and 6.6g of SFA, which is 4X the amount of PUFA in a beef burger, according to USDA nutrition data (http:// nutritiondata.self.com) TASTE and ODOUR.

Authors and Affiliations

W Jon Meadus

Keywords

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  • EP ID EP570412
  • DOI 10.32474/CIACR.2018.02.000145
  • Views 88
  • Downloads 0

How To Cite

W Jon Meadus (2018). Fast Food Pork in North America. Current Investigations in Agriculture and Current Research, 2(4), 251-252. https://europub.co.uk/articles/-A-570412