Farmscape for July 21, 2006  (Episode 2200)

A home economist with Manitoba Pork Council is encouraging summer barbecuers to choose the leaner cuts and to trim excess fat to maximize the healthfulness of the meat they cook.

Because the fat drips away from the meat during barbecuing, barbecuing is considered among the more healthful methods of cooking meat.

Manitoba Pork Council's consumer oriented web site, pickpork.com, provides consumers food safety tips, nutritional information and individual pork recipes as well as recipe brochures.

Home economist Marlene McDonald says Canadian pork is leaner than ever.

Clip-Marlene McDonald-Manitoba Pork Council

Almost any pork cut can be done on the barbecue.

The thing I would want to make sure is that the cuts are well trimmed.

We want to, of course, minimize any fat on the meat and most pork cuts are well trimmed when you buy them.

We just want to minimize flaring as well.

It just makes cooking a little easier.

If you're cooking individual things other than a roast, the thing you want to be sure of is that the individual pieces are of relatively even thickness and that way everything will cook at about the same rate and it will just make cooking easier.

The chops, you want to be basically all the same thickness.

The same with blade steaks or burgers or so on.

Just make sure that they're the same size so you're not cooking things for different amounts of time.

All trimmed pork cuts, with the exception of ribs, are considered to be lean so they're all good choices.

You can have cubes to make kabobs, there are a variety of chops both bone in and boneless, the roasts, tenderloin is excellent on the barbecue as well as lean ground pork which makes great burgers as well so there are lots to choose from.

As far as the ribs go, once in a while is OK.

It's not something you're going to have everyday.

McDonald notes most pork cuts don't take a lot of time to cook on the barbecue and, because pork is so lean, it can easily dry out if it's over cooked.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork Council