Pork is the most widely consumed animal meat in the world accounting for approximately 40% of the total global meat intake. Pork almost always undergoes some degree of processing prior to consumption. Consequently, thermal processing induces modification to the 3-dimentional structure of proteins, which may lead to increased digestibility of amino acids (AA).

Protein quality is evaluated in human foods by the digestible indispensable amino acid score (DIAAS) methodology, which can be described as the digestibility of individual dietary indispensable AA (IAA) compared with the same IAA in 1 of the 3 reference protein patterns established by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Values for DIAAS of bovine meat cooked by various techniques have been determined, yet to our knowledge, there are no reported DIAAS values for pork products and the IAA digestibility of pork after processing has not been reported.

Therefore, the objective for the present work was to determine DIAAS values for pork products, and to test the hypothesis that processing may increase protein quality.