Fat contents of different cuts of meat

[aris]

Does anyone know the fat content of different cuts of meat - in particular pork.

For instance, boneless, skinless pork shoulder - what % fat does it have? Is it suitable for making sausage on its own, or do you need to add fat?

What about a cut i've seen called 'Neck ends' - i'm not sure what cut this is.

And what about 'pork collar' - I assume this is neck meat?

If you use belly - does this tend to have bones or cartlidge in it - or can you get bonless belly?

Is belly suitable for sausage on its own or is it too fatty?

[rochfordcountrymeats]

Rindless shoulder meat is generally classed as 80:20 meat on a visual lean basis, ie 80% meat 20% fat. On a chemical analysis the fat would actually be about 5% higher due to intramuscular fat.
Boneless rindless belly would be 50:50 on the same basis as above.
I use shoulder meat in all our sausages-too much sniping from the food police over fat, and I prefer the sausage it makes.
Collar is the lean muscle out of the middle of the shoulder, neckends somewhat similar.
HTH Andy

[aris]

What do you mean by 'visual lean' - does that mean no visible fat - i.e. white bits?

Do you know what the fat content of collar or neck-ends would be?

[Franco]

I find that pork shoulder is slightly dry without any added fat, i usually throw in a little back fat for good measure.

Franco

[aris]

Franco - do you ever use any other cuts of pork? My local wholesaler is selling 'neck ends' for 95p per lb.

Ever use this cut?

[rochfordcountrymeats]

aris-neckends probably the same as collar, at that price anyway.
Visual lean is measured in big factories with a grid to roughly asses the amount of lean meat you can see.
Never had trouble with dry sausages from using shoulder meat-our pigs are not overly fat so back fat is something we don't throw up.
regards andy

[aris]

Ok, so if I buy a pork shoulder from Tescos, and it has no fat visible - what percentage of fat would you think it may be? By 'no fat visible' I mean no layer of fat as you would find on a belly.

[rochfordcountrymeats]

From my experience fat based on chemical analysis is about 5 % higher than visual. I worked for th Fresh Meat Company some years ago, we used an x-ray machine to asses fat-something that was 95% visual lean (95vl) would come out as 90% chemical lean. In the case of Tescos, they trim their meat to almost non existance anyway ( I am no fan of supermarkets)

[rochfordcountrymeats]

Sorry Aris not reading post properly, I should of thougt that a shoulder like you describe would be 90vl-needs to be cut through the middle to get a clear picture.
hth ak

[aris]

Ok, so i'll probably need to add some fat - perhaps some belly or something.

[Parson Snows]

In answer to your question regarding the fat content of various meats etc, Refer to �Annex C �of Labelling and Compostion of Meat Products Guidance Notes, by the Food Standards Agency September 2003. Moulton also did extensive work on this subject. Also for your information most sausage makers utilize a method called Pearson�s Square (also known as St. Andrew�s Square) to calculate the different final fat percentages based on different cuts of meat used. In this way they can always achieve there target fat percentage figure.

Hope that this is of some use to you

Parson Snows