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In the culmination to a years-long campaign by pork producers and processors, the latest major push of which began i2006, USDA announced yesterday that it is reducing its recommended cooking temperature for pork muscle cuts to 145°F internatemperature followed by a three minute rest time before carving or consuming. To the uninitiated, this may seem like just anothechange to an innocuous government recommendation but the pork industry believes it is a very big deal indeed as it removes one hurdle toconsumers’ enjoying a better eating experience with pork in general and fresh pork in particular. A copy of the National Pork Board’s necooking guidelines appears on page 2. The guide can be downloaded from www.porkbeinspired.com.

The change, announced by USDA Under-Secretary for Food Safety Dr. Elizabeth Hagen, creates a uniform cooking temperaturrecommendation for all muscle cuts of meat (beef, pork, veal and lamb) and establishes a uniform three minute rest time recommendatiofor all cuts. The rest time is important as it allows heat to be conducted from hotter surface areas into the middle of a cut, pushing internatemperatures to the point that any pathogens which may be present are destroyed. It should be noted that USDA still recommends thaground meats be cooked to 160°internal temperature and that all poultry be cooked to internal temperatures of 165°.

Why is this such a big deal? A bit of history is in order.Pork has always carried a “there’s something in there that you have to kill” albatross around its neck. The “something” that ha

caused generations of mothers and grandmothers to teach their daughters (and sons!) to cook pork until “it” (and the pork itself, in mosopinions!) was dead is trichinella spiralis , a parasite that was once relatively common in pigs. The larvae of trichinella spiralis encyst themselves in the striated muscle tissue of their hosts and, if not destroyed by heat or freezing, can be passed on to any animal eating that muscle tissue. They then mature to adulthood in the intestines of the host and produce more larvae which make themselves at home in the mus

cle tissue of this new host causing trichinosis, a disease characterized by fever and inflammatory pain.The good news is that the incidence of trichanella spiralis in the U.S. pig population has fallen to virtually zero. One reason for tha

reduction is simply more and more vigilance by pork producers in controlling parasites. But a larger reason is the move from outdoor production systems to confinement systems. That change has eliminated most contact between pigs and wildlife, breaking a major transmissiovector for trichinella spiralis. Those big, bad “factory farms” that activists rail against have some VERY POSITIVE impacts on consumers.

Virtually all cases of trichinosis in the U.S. are now associated with consuming improperly prepared wild game meat, especiallmeat from bears and raccoons. The disease is so rare in pig populations that a USDA trichanella monitoring and eradication pilot project ithe late 1990s had one major problem: It could find hardly any infected pigs.

The second reason that this is an important action is that modern pork is not nearly as forgiving when overcooked. Lean porsimply cannot withstand the overcooking that once was masked by higher external and internal fat content.

The move to heavier-muscled, leaner hogs was driven by consumer demand as well as production economics. When fat– ancholesterol-phobia first hit U.S. consumer in the mid-1980s, pork demand fell by an average of 4.5% per year for 5 straight years. Pigs wergetting leaner and pork producers launched “The Other White Meat” campaign to highlight this product improvement and position the product closer to white meat chicken which was perceived to be the gold standard for “healthy” meat. In addition, producers discovered that these lean pigs were MUCH more efficient in converting feed to gain, adding

fuel to the drive to reduce fat cover and increase lean muscle content.The “leaning” of pork really got rolling in the 1990s when better genetics,nutrition and breeding systems pushed fat content lower and lower.

But there was a price to pay. External fat cover and seam fat(ie. the fat deposited internally between muscles) was the focus of theleanness drive but selection for leanness with little attention paid to intra-muscular fat (ie. marbling, those little flecks of fat within muscles) led tolower intramuscular fat content and, in some cases, bad eating experi-ences. Those experiences were made even worse by consumers who,based on grandma, mom and USDA’s 160°recommendation, continuedto cook pork until “it” was dead.

We think lower satisfaction with product quality is one reasonthat the price of loins relative to the value of the pork carcass declinedsharply from 1998 to 2004 and, perhaps, again since 2009. Other fac-tors are at play, of course, but today’s pork chops and other loin cuts

usually have very little visible intramuscular fat, making them very sensi-tive to overcooking. This change to 145°F-plus-3 minutes will help!

Disclaimer: The Daily Livestock Report is intended solely for information purposes and is not to be construed, under any circumstances, by implication or otherwise, as an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy or trade anycommodities or securities whatsoever. Information is obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but is in no way guaranteed. No guarantee of any kind is implied or possible where projections of future conditions areattempted. Futures trading is not suitable for all investors, and involves the risk of loss. Past results are no indication of future performance. Futures are a leveraged investment, and because only a percentage of a con-tract’s value is require to trade, it is possible to lose more than the amount of money initially deposited for a futures position. Therefore, traders should only use funds that they can afford to lose without affecting their life-style. And only a portion of those funds should be devoted to any one trade because a trader cannot expect to profit on every trade.

CME Group is the trademark of CME Group, Inc. The Globe logo, Globex ® and CME ® are trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Inc. CBOT ®  is the trademark of the Board of Trade of the City of Chicago. NYMEX,New York Mercantile Exchange, and ClearPort are trademarks of New York Mercantile Exchange. Inc. COMEX is a trademark of Commodity Exchange, Inc. Copyright © 2011 CME Group. All rights reserved.

The Daily Livestock Report is published by Steve Meyer and Len Steiner. Please forward to others that may benefit from this information. To subscribeunsubscribe visit www.dailylivestockreport.com.

Vol. 10, No. 99, May 25 2

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8/6/2019 Pork Temperatures

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Disclaimer: The Daily Livestock Report is intended solely for information purposes and is not to be construed, under any circumstances, by implication or otherwise, as an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy or trade anycommodities or securities whatsoever. Information is obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but is in no way guaranteed. No guarantee of any kind is implied or possible where projections of future conditions areattempted. Futures trading is not suitable for all investors, and involves the risk of loss. Past results are no indication of future performance. Futures are a leveraged investment, and because only a percentage of a con-tract’s value is require to trade, it is possible to lose more than the amount of money initially deposited for a futures position. Therefore, traders should only use funds that they can afford to lose without affecting their life-style. And only a portion of those funds should be devoted to any one trade because a trader cannot expect to profit on every trade.

CME Group is the trademark of CME Group, Inc. The Globe logo, Globex ® and CME ® are trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Inc. CBOT ®  is the trademark of the Board of Trade of the City of Chicago. NYMEX,New York Mercantile Exchange, and ClearPort are trademarks of New York Mercantile Exchange. Inc. COMEX is a trademark of Commodity Exchange, Inc. Copyright © 2011 CME Group. All rights reserved.

The Daily Livestock Report is published by Steve Meyer and Len Steiner. Please forward to others that may benefit from this information. To subscribeunsubscribe visit www.dailylivestockreport.com.

Vol. 10, No. 98, May 24, 2