Proximate Contents, Losses and Gains of Fat, Protein and Water Comparing Raw, Hospital- and Household-Cooked Pork Cuts

The contents of fat, protein and water were determined in raw and corresponding cooked pork cuts: three joints with rind (thin belly, neck boneless, loin boneless), two joints without rind (neck boneless, loin boneless) and three sliced joints (thick belly, neck, pork chops with and without bread). The meat was cooked in a household and a hospital kitchen. Cuts were cooked in oven without added fat and in pan with fat. For oven-cooked cuts no differences in fat losses between kitchen types were found (household kitchen: −4.5±2.9%; hospital kitchen: −4.9±3.4%;P=0.7), while fat losses for pan-cooked cuts differed slightly (household kitchen: +1.9±2.4%; hospital kitchen: +0.5±2.1%;P=0.02). Breaded pork chops gained more fat during cooking than non-breaded pork chops (+3.5±2.0 and +0.3±0.7%, respectively;P=0.02). Fat loss from neck and loin (whole joints) cooked without fat was somewhat higher than fat loss from the corresponding sliced joints cooked with fat (non-breaded) (−1.6±0.9 and +0.1±1.2%, respectively;P=0.001). Cooking causes small, if any, losses of meat protein. Water losses showed wide variations (range: −13.4±2.9 to −39.9±3.6%) and accounted for a major part of total weight loss. Positive correlations between water loss (r=0.40;P=0.01) and weight loss (r=0.47;P=0.01), and internal temperature could be demonstrated. An increase in the fat content calculated per 100 g of cooked meat was seen for all the cuts, indicating that losses of mainly water were relatively larger than fat losses. Fat (wt%) in raw and cooked meat for seven of nine cuts correlated significantly. Their pooled linear regression equation was as follows: fat in cooked meat (wt%)=1.02×fat in raw meat (wt%)+2.97; thus, fat content of cooked pork meat can be estimated irrespective of cooking methods.