Abstract
The National Pork Producer’s Council (NPPC) has been promoting pork as “the other white meat” for several years now, and hopes to make it “the meat of choice” by the year 2000. In order to achieve this, the consumer needs to be convinced of pork’s parity (or superiority) with poultry, especially when incorporated into a “heart-healthy” diet. Accordingly, this study was carried out to ascertain whether replacement of chicken fat by pork fat, from the American Heart Association Step 1 diet (recommended for everyone over the age of 2 years), would influence blood lipids. To achieve this goal, ten male cynomolgus monkeys (an excellent model for studying human lipid metabolism), were initially fed a high-fat, high-cholesterol control diet, mimicking the typical American diet in terms of fat quantity (38% of total energy), quality (rich in saturated fat) and cholesterol content (approximately 450 mg per day). They were then fed in sequence one of two prudent test diets formulated in accordance with current dietary guidelines (30% energy from fat, 10% energy from saturated fat and less than 300 mg of cholesterol per day). The sole difference between the test diets was that 80% of the fat was either pork or chicken fat, and the cholesterol content of the diet was derived solely from that contained in the test fats.
Both test diets were equally effective in improving the blood lipid profile when compared to the control diet, lowering total blood cholesterol and LDL (or “bad”) cholesterol by 39% and 48%, respectively. As a consequence, the lipid profile (ratio of TC/HDL-C) improved by 27%. However, between the two test diets, there was no significant difference between any of the lipid parameters that we measured [Total cholesterol 142±25 vs. 135±25 mg/dl, HDL (“good”) cholesterol 60±12 vs. 58±15 mg/dl and LDL (“bad’) cholesterol 82±27 vs. 77±22 mg/dl, for the pork and chicken diets, respectively]. Consequently the ratio of TC/HDL-C was indistinguishable for the pork and chicken-based diets (2.53±0.54 vs. 2.55 ± 0.74, respectively). Metabolic studies revealed that the reduction in LDL cholesterol induced by the test diets was due to decreased production and increased clearance of the LDL fraction. Again there was no significant difference between the two test diets for any of the metabolic parameters measured. These results show that when consumed as part of currently recommended “heart-healthy” diets, pork fat is as effective as chicken fat in maintaining a desirable blood lipid profile.