White meat

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White meat refers to any light-colored meat, such as fish, seafood, and particularly poultry. However, in a broader sense, it includes any of the meats that are considered to be less fatty compared to red meats. The term "white meat" comes from the fact that the meat of chicken is white in color. Examples of white meat are animal proteins derived from birds (chicken, turkey, duck, pheasant, etc.), fish, reptiles (alligator meat), amphibians (frogs' legs), crustaceans (lobster, shrimp, crab) or bivalves (oysters, clams, mussels). Even those that are red, or reddish-colored, such as salmon, red snapper, or cooked lobsters and shrimp are not red meat; instead they are called white meat, or lean meat.

Meats that are red when raw but turn pale or white after cooking present a paradox. Officially they can be considered red meat, as the United States Department of Agriculture does, but producers and consumers may prefer to categorize them as white meat. The National Pork Board in the United States has positioned pork as a white meat.

[edit] Reason for color

Within poultry, there are two types of meats - white and dark. The different colors are based on the different locations and uses of the muscles. Dark meats occur in the legs, which are used to support the weight of the animals while they move. These muscles are designed to develop endurance for long-term use and contains a large amount of myoglobin, allowing the muscle to use oxygen more efficiently for aerobic respiration. In contrast the white meat, generally found within the breasts of the birds, are used for quick bursts of power which requires little of the meat-darkening myoglobin. Note that this holds for ground-based bird like chickens and turkeys - birds which use their chest muscles for flight (such as geese and ducks) have dark meat throughout their bodies.^[1]