Pork
Food · Protein · Food, Typed Supps
Which cut you buy changes the fat far more than how you cook it.
Stage by stage
- Intake (Chewing and stomach acid): Chewing breaks up the muscle fibres and, on untrimmed cuts, the fat cap attached to them.
- Digestion (Protein cleaved to amino acids): Stomach and pancreatic enzymes take the complete protein apart into amino acids and short peptides.
- Absorption (Amino acids, fat and heme iron): Amino acids and heme iron are absorbed; fat absorption depends almost entirely on how much fat was left on the cut.
- Use (Muscle repair and B-vitamin cofactors): Amino acids feed muscle protein synthesis while thiamin and B6 are converted into the cofactors that run carbohydrate and amino acid metabolism.
Time to effect
- Hours: Amino acids from a serve reach the bloodstream within roughly 1 to 3 hours.
Allergens
None of the fourteen major allergens. Derived from what this food is, not from a product label.
Eating patterns
Fits: Keto, Low-FODMAP, Gluten-free.
Satiety
216 on the satiety index, where white bread is 100 — very high. Modelled from the Holt et al. (1995) measurements.
Environmental footprint
12.3 kg CO2e and 1796 litres of freshwater per kg, matched to "Pig meat" in Poore & Nemecek (2018), Science 360.
Cost band
Mid — roughly £9 per kg, as a band midpoint rather than a price.
Key nutrients
Nutrition per 100g
- Calories: 103
- Protein: 23.1g
- Carbohydrate: 0g
- of which sugars: 0g
- Fat: 1.1g
- of which saturated: 0.4g
- Fibre: 0g
- Sodium: 42mg
Food vs. supplement
A serve of lean pork matches a scoop of protein powder for protein and beats it comprehensively on micronutrients, supplying heme iron, zinc, selenium, B12 and an unusually large dose of thiamin in a single food. No supplement replicates that combination, and the trade-off is only saturated fat, which is a function of the cut rather than of pork itself.
Kitchen tip
Buy on the trim word, not the cut name. Fillet, medallion and butterfly steak trimmed of fat are lean enough to need fast, brief cooking; shoulder, scotch and spare ribs carry their own fat and reward slow heat.
Common myth
"Pork is a white meat, so it is lighter than beef." In reality: Pork is classed as red meat in every dietary guideline; the white meat line was a marketing slogan. What actually makes a pork meal light or heavy is the trim — the lean rows in this family are leaner than most beef, and the separable-fat and crackling rows are among the fattiest foods in the database.
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