The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science

Well, pigs and cattle differ mostly in their fast-twitch
versus slow-twitch muscles (see here). Cows are large
animals that spend most of their time walking around and
grazing, requiring plenty of long, sustained effort from their
muscles, which eventually turns them coarse, and flavorful,
with a deep red color—a by-product of the oxygenation
necessary for them to perform work. Pigs are smaller and
less active for sustained periods of time. You may see them
trot over to the trough to gorge, but they spend the bulk of
their time lying in the mud or in the shade to keep cool.
Consequently, their dark slow-twitch muscles are less
developed. Instead, you’ll find plenty of paler, more fine-
textured fast-twitch muscle, as well as a good deal of stored