Red meat

Commonly, especially in gastronomy, red meat or dark meat is red when raw and dark in color when cooked, in contrast to white meat, which is pale in color before and after cooking. This definition only refers to flesh from mammals or fowl.

In nutritional science, red meat is defined as any meat that has more myoglobin than white meat, white meat being defined as non-dark meat from chicken (excluding leg or thigh), or fish. Some meat, such as pork, is red meat using the nutritional definition, and white meat using the common definition.

According to the USDA, all meats obtained from mammals (regardless of cut or age) are red meats because they contain more myoglobin than fish or white meat (but not necessarily dark meat) from chicken.

The culinary definition has many rules and exceptions. Generally meat from mammals (for example cattle, horse meat, bull meat) and meat from hunting (wild boars, deer, pigeons, partridges, quail and pheasant) excluding fish and insects are considered red meat. Although poultry is usually considered white, duck and goose are red. For some animals the culinary definition of red meat differs by cut, and sometimes by the age of the animal is when it was slaughtered. Pork is considered red if the animal is adult, but white if young (e.g. suckling pig). The same applies to young lamb and veal. Game is sometimes put in a separate category altogether. (French: viandes noires — "dark meats".)

Pork is considered white under the culinary definition, but red in nutritional studies. The National Pork Board has positioned it as "Pork. The Other White Meat", profiting from the ambiguity to suggest that pork has the nutritional properties of white meat, which is considered more healthful.

Red meat contains large amounts of iron, creatine, minerals such as zinc and phosphorus, and B-vitamins: (niacin, vitamin B₁₂, thiamin and riboflavin). Red meat is a source of lipoic acid.

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