White meat

Chicken is the most commonly eaten white meat

White meat or light meat refers to the lighter-colored meat of poultry, as contrasted with dark meat. In a more general sense, white meat may 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]

Pork

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; this follows the traditional gastronomic classification. 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 is higher than 65%, and this is the definition used in nutritional studies.^[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]

Poultry

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. For ground-based birds like chicken and turkeys, 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. 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 wrote that dark meat contains more vitamins,^[8] while a New York Times columnist has stated the two meats are nearly identical in nutritional value, especially when compared with typical red meat. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, one ounce of boneless, skinless turkey breast contains about one gram of fat, compared with roughly two grams of fat for an ounce of boneless, skinless thigh.^[9] The numbers go up when the skin is kept in: a chicken thigh, with skin intact, has 13 grams of total fat and 3 1/2 grams of saturated fat per 3-ounce serving; this is about 20 percent of the recommended maximum daily intake.^[10]

References

Meat
Main articles Entomophagy Fish Game Livestock Meat Poultry Seafood
Poultry and game	Alligator Chicken Crocodile Duck Goose Grouse Kangaroo Ostrich Partridge Pheasant Bat Pigeon Quail Rabbit Snake Turkey Venison
Livestock and minilivestock	Beef Bison Black soldier fly maggots Camel Cat Crickets Dog Elephant Frog Goat Grasshoppers Guinea pig Horse Lamb and mutton Llama Mealworm Mopane worm Palm grub Pork Veal Yak
Fish and seafood	Alligator Anchovy Basa Bass Carp Catfish Cod Crab Crappie Crayfish Dolphin Eel Flounder Grouper Haddock Halibut Herring Kingfish Lobster Mackerel Mahi Mahi Marlin Milkfish Orange roughy Pacific saury Perch Pike Pollock Salmon Sardine Shark Shrimp/prawn Sole Swordfish Tilapia Trout Tuna Walleye Whale
Cuts and preparation, precooked	Aged Bacon Barbecued Braised Burger Charcuterie Chop Corned Cured Cutlet Dried Dum Fillet / Supreme Fried Ham Kebab Liver Luncheon meat Marinated Meatball Meatloaf Offal Pickled Poached Roasted Salt-cured Salumi Sausage Smoked Steak Stewed Tandoor Tartare
List articles	Beef dishes Chicken dishes Countries by meat consumption Fish dishes Food and drink prohibitions Goat dishes Lamb dishes Pork dishes Sausage dishes Sausages Seafood dishes Smoked foods Steaks Veal dishes
Related subjects	Animal rights Bushmeat Butcher Cannibalism Carnism Christian vegetarianism Cultured meat Ethics of eating meat Factory farming Feed conversion ratio Meat cutter Meat paradox Meat tenderness Pescetarianism Plant-based diet Preservation Psychology of eating meat Red meat Semi-vegetarianism Slaughter Slaughterhouse Veganism Vegetarianism White meat