Is Pork Red Or White Meat? It's Complicated

Unless you end up making egregious mistakes when cooking pork chops, the color of the meat when you cut into them should usually be white. So, pork is white meat, right? Not so fast. Picturing a juicy pork tenderloin could lead one to believe the flesh is just as white as chicken — but consider bacon for a moment. If the candy bar of meats is any color other than red when served to someone in a diner, it generally gets sent back. The color of meat once it is cooked has nothing to do with the term "red meat."

The truth is that pork is considered red meat. It is a livestock animal, and the USDA qualifies all livestock as red meat. "Red meat" refers to the amount of myoglobin — a protein that holds oxygen in the muscles – in the flesh of the animal. Fish and chicken are both considered white because they lack the amount of myoglobin that makes meat look red before it is cooked. Pork contains less myoglobin than beef but is still classified as red meat like other livestock such as lamb and veal. 

American and British bacon may not be cut from the same part of the animal, but they are both pork and, therefore, red meat. The same goes for ham or any other cut from a pig. The confusion lies in a deceptive marketing campaign that most Gen-Xers will remember, one that aimed to produce more profit for the pork industry.

During the 1980s and into the '90s, many folks began avoiding food products with high fat content. Right or wrong, Americans were convinced that fatty foods were significantly contributing to health problems like heart attacks, and they were searching for alternatives. Big Pork leaned into this assumption. The National Pork Board spent years constructing a marketing campaign designed to convince consumers that pork was a lean, nutritious protein. In 1987, anyone who watched commercials soon became familiar with the phrase the industry hoped would encourage people to buy their product: "Pork. The Other White Meat."

Television in the '90s was teeming with commercials from food manufacturers trying to convince the public their products were healthy. Some were eventually met with the scrutiny they deserved, like the discontinued Kudos snack bars slathered in a sweet chocolate coating. Yet, despite the slogan being verifiably false, the pork industry's campaign was a huge success. Pork surged in popularity after playing second fiddle to beef and chicken for years. Even when Big Beef shot back with its iconic slogan, "Beef. It's What's For Dinner," in 1992, it didn't stop people from believing that pork was a healthier meat alternative to a juicy steak.