10 Surprising Health Benefits of Pulled Pork You Never Know

There are many techniques or methods of cooking that have been developed by the chef. Those various ways of cooking are developed to make people do not get bored with the usual ways. People can vary their cooking ways such as sautéing, baking, frying, deep frying, roasting, and many more.

This article will discuss about a certain pork cooking technique. Do you like to eat pork, huh? What is your technique of cooking pork you usually use? In general, people love to cook pork by roasting it and then eat it with vegetables like lettuce. But, have you ever heard the term of pulled pork?

What is pulled pork?

Pulled pork is a term refers to the way or technique to cook pork. The pork is smoked over low heat for a long period of time; you can cook it above the stove of simply put in the oven. After the meat is cooked or done, then you shred the meat by using forks until the meat become pieces.

Pulled pork can be served in various types of food. You can use it as the content in sandwiches, burgers, or as a side dish with rice. Pull pork not only provides a delicious tender and juicy meat but also it apparently provides health benefits for us. There are some parts of pork that can be eaten, such as tenderloin pork, lean pork, shoulder pork, etc. But in pulled pork usually used shoulder pork as the main ingredients.

Nutritional Value of Pulled Pork

100 grams of pulled pork contains numerous contents as follows.

• 168 calories
• 13 g/26% total protein
• 4.4 g/6% total fats
• 19 g/6% total carbohydrates
• 35 mg cholesterol
• 666 mg/27% Sodium
• 305 mg/8% potassium
• 5% vitamin A
• 6% vitamin B
• 10% vitamin B-6
• 2% vitamin D
• 6% iron
• 5% magnesium
• 4% calcium

Health Benefits of Pulled Pork

Pulled pork usually made with the pork shoulder (or sometimes pork butt) which contains high protein. The high protein in pulled pork becomes the main benefit to lose weight and maintain weight. In addition, the health benefits of magnesium content of pulled pork are very good for the growth of teeth and bones. For the detail information of health benefits of pulled pork, keep reading on this article.

1. Promotes Satiety or Fullness

Pulled pork is rich in protein and its high-quality protein. Satiety or fullness is the feeling of satisfied or full because of the foods we eat. Comparing to kinds of carbohydrates, protein is considered to be more satiating. 

2. Promote Thermogenesis

Pulled pork contains high protein. The high protein in pulled pork will effect on weight loss. Thermogenesis itself is the process of burning calories to produce heat inside your body. As the result, the heat will increase your energy.

3. Balance Body Weight

Eating pulled pork can serve as weight management by maintaining the muscle mass during energy restriction.

4. Maintain Muscle Mass

Maintaining muscle mass is important when you wanted to lose some weight. Maintained muscle mass can help to burn more fat in your body, so your body contain less fat which makes you healthier.

5. Good Source of Protein

Protein content is very important to support some chemical activities inside the body, for the example metabolism and thermogenesis. You may also read health benefits of bacon and health benefits of sirloin steak–animal protein source

6. Promotes Better Metabolism

The effect of better thermogenesis process in the body also increase metabolism. The better metabolism in the body will help you to lose your fats especially when you sleep. Because metabolism usually happens when we are sleeping.

7. High Source of Vitamin B-6

Not only the protein that can help to promote better metabolism, but also vitamin B-6 properties. The Health Benefits of vitamin B-6  is also helping your metabolism reduce the fats. Moreover, it keeps the function of nervous systems.

8. Boost Immune System

Pork contains zinc property that is best for immunity booster. Having good immune system will be resulted in the ability of body to resist from numerous and various kinds of diseases.

9. Boost Energy

It has been stated above that high protein in pulled pork promotes better thermogenesis process to burn calories and makes it into heat which later will be used as the energy.

Related articles:

• Health Benefits of Eating Pork Skin
• Health Benefits of Lean Pork
• Health Benefits of Tenderloin Pork

10. Produce Red Blood Cells

Pork meat contains various vitamins, minerals, and other substances such as protein, amino acids that are beneficial for body health. Those contents help to promote body building as well as producing red blood cells. Thus, there are many health benefits of pulled pork for you!

How to Make Pulled Pork

There are tons of pulled pork recipes, but this article will give you the best of pulled pork recipe that you can apply it by yourself. It’s quite easy because the ingredients using in this recipe is easy to be found in. Moreover, the ways are quite simple although cooking pulled pork takes time, but you will not regret because the taste is worth your time.

What You need

• 2½ kg boneless shoulder of pork
• ¼ cup of brown sugar
• 2 tablespoon of kosher salt
• 2 tablespoon of paprika (smoked)
• 2 tablespoon of ground cumin
• ½ tablespoon of ground mustard seed
• ¼ onion powder
• 2 medium mugful of smoky barbeque sauce
• 2 medium mugful of cider
• A tablespoon of fresh black pepper
• A tablespoon of salt

What You Have to Do

1. Prepare 2 ½ kg boneless shoulder of pork. After that, mix 2 tablespoon of each smoked paprika, ground cumin, pepper, brown sugar, and salt altogether. Next, rub the mixture over the pork. Don’t forget to message the rub into the pork meat.
2. Put it in the refrigerator for at least an hour to make the meat absorb well all the spices.
3. After that, put the pork in big bowl or casserole and pour 2 medium mugful of cider. Next step is put in in the oven with the heat 300° F or 150° C or 130°
4. Roast the meat until it gets dry. Wait 3 to 4 hours. Don’t forget to check the meat every hour to check if the meat is too dry or not.
5. If the meat has met the texture, take it out of the oven and put in a big plate. After you cut the skin off, then pull the meat apart by using two forks. Remove any large piece of fatty bits because we don’t need it.
6. Serve the pulled pork and add barbeque sauce.
7. You can use the pulled pork as sandwich, hamburger, or any other foods, or simply as the side dish with rice.

Precautions and Warnings

Although pulled pork provides many beneficial effect for body health such as health benefits of pork liver, but consuming pork has believed for decades to be associated with numerous health problems. If you have indulgence with eating pork and don’t mind to eat it like almost everyday, then you need to consider some bad effects of pork consumption.

1. Diseases associated with bacteria. Pork has deal with numerous bacteria such as salmonella, campylobacter, staphylococcus aureus, sscherichia coli,  yersinia enterocolitica, and listeria monocytogenes. Campylobacter is known to be the cause of diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal pain or stomachache, and nausea problems also other disease cause by food poisoning.
2. Diseases associated with virus. The most common disease cause by virus of the pork is hepatitis E. Hepatitis E can lead various health problems like fever, vomiting, joint pain, fatigue, jaundice, and stomach pain, enlarged liver and sometimes liver failure and the worst is death.
3. Diseases associated with parasites. The most common parasite is Trichinella spiralis. It can cause several ailments with symptoms like diarrhea, abdominal pain, vomiting, weakness, and nausea problem.

Those bad effects of pork consumption is actually can be avoided by choosing a healthy pig which produce a healthy meat and the right cooking technique so the bacteria, viruses, and parasites all die in the cooking process. Moreover, it is important to be noted that do not eat pork meat in excessive amount.