Study Shows Pork Lower In Fat While Chicken Now Fattier Than Before

The pork in your grocery's meat case has 39% less exterior fat than it did just ten years ago, according to the findings of a recent study in the Journal of Food composition and Analysis (September 1998). Meanwhile, skinless chicken, the frequent refuge of the health-conscious diner, has become fattier, with the meat fat content for all chicken cuts studied being 23% higher than the nutritional information contained in the USDA nutritional database. Chicken actually has 34% more cholesterol than pork.

These conclusions are based on a U.S. sampling by scientists at the University of Wisconsin who examined the nutritional content of the most commonly purchased pork and chicken cuts. Researchers analyzed randomly selected pork and chicken cuts from supermarkets throughout the U.S.