Is Scrapple Healthy? The Surprising Truth About This PA Dutch Delicacy (2024)

FAQs

Is Scrapple Healthy? The Surprising Truth About This PA Dutch Delicacy? ›

Scrapple is a nutrient-dense breakfast food that is surprisingly healthy when enjoyed in moderation.

Scrapple, as locals joke, is made of “everything but the oink,” meaning that you'd make scrapple out of whatever parts of the pig you had leftover after cutting bacon, chops, ribs, and loin. The processed pork product has the size, shape, and color of solid concrete blocks.

The answer for a cholesterol/weight concerned person is to cut back drastically on the frequency and the amount of meat. Remember, marbling in meat is saturated fat, and prepared and processed meats such as bacon, sausage, scrapple, bologna, etc., are very high in saturated fat.

Scrapple is loaded with protein including tons of collagen, the primary building block of our body's skin, muscles, bones, tendons, ligaments and other connective tissues. It also contains iron, zinc, selenium, B-complex vitamins and a host of other micronutrients.

Scrapple, also known by the Pennsylvania Dutch name Pannhaas ('pan tenderloin' in English; compare Panhas), is a traditional mush of fried pork scraps and trimmings combined with cornmeal and wheat flour, often buckwheat flour, and spices.

Nutrition and Benefits of Scrapple

Scrapple is rich in carbohydrates and protein as well as Vitamin A and iron. It's also relatively high in fat, saturated fat, and sodium.

Protein: Since scrapple is primarily made from pork, it contains a significant amount of protein. Protein is an essential macronutrient necessary for various bodily functions, including muscle repair and growth.

If you have high cholesterol, you should talk with your doctor about what you eat, including meat. There are good, lean choices. For example, you can consider chicken or turkey breasts without skin; pork tenderloin; or beef round, sirloin, or tenderloin. Avoid highly processed meats (bacon, ham, lunchmeat, etc.).

One of sausage's distant cousins is a rectangle-shaped pork relative named "scrapple." This cherished cuisine in the mid-Atlantic region (Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Jersey) is popular for breakfast and made from leftover pig parts, cornmeal and flour.

Skinless, lean, and ground chicken or turkey breast are good low-cholesterol choices. 100g of lean cuts of turkey breast contain around 104mg of cholesterol. While this seems like a lot, it only has 3g of saturated fat.

Do amish eat scrapple? ›

Scrapple originates from the frugal notion of wasting nothing in the kitchen. Made from pork offcuts and cornmeal, this dish is an embodiment of resourcefulness. It's a traditional breakfast staple in many Amish households.

This dish has both Dutch and German origins, and it's most popular in areas of Pennsylvania with Dutch and German roots. Essentially a type of meat pudding, scrapple is usually made from finely minced ground pork meat and offal, spices, and coarse flour such as cornmeal or buckwheat.

In the South, scrapple is often called livermush.

Scrapple originated from pre-Roman Europe and later from Germany with a dish known as 'panhas' in German, which was traditionally made with rabbit. When the Pennsylvania Dutch settlers brought the culinary tradition to Pennsylvania, the recipe was adapted to use pork, which was more readily available in the region.

Delaware is the undisputed capital of scrapple, a poor man's dish made from pork scraps.

Though made from basically the same ingredients, livermush and scrapple are, technically, not really the same. Livermush always contains an amount of liver in addition to cornmeal. Scrapple might have some liver…or not. If it doesn't have any liver, it must be scrapple!

Along with cold cuts, other processed meats include bacon, salami, bologna, hot dogs and sausages. Fresh chicken, turkey, beef, pork and fish that have not been modified are considered unprocessed meats.

While both Spam and Scrapple are canned meat products, they have distinct differences. Spam is made from cuts of pork and ham, while scrapple is made from scraps and trimmings. Scrapple contains more spices and herbs than spam and is usually fried, while you can eat spam raw out of the can.