I eat a lot of frozen dinners, and I can’t help but noticing that if a dish has meat in it, at least 3/4 of the time it will be chicken. This is especially prevalent with Smart Ones and Lean Cuisine. You see beef and shrimp occasionally, but pork is only seen as an ingredient in meatballs or sausage in pasta dishes, and lamb or veal are conspicuous by their absence. It gets kind of boring having so little choice if you don’t care for chicken that much.
Does it just withstand freezing better, is it cheaper, or both?
Beef can be low-fat; at least, in the soups I like to eat (beef and vegetable), they have only 1-2 grams of fat per serving (around 100-150 calories) and up to 10 grams of protein with plenty of meat (not just a few small pieces). Chicken can be pretty high in fat too if you don’t remove the skin.
But remember these are American consumers here. If you go up to 100 dieters and ask them: Which of these meats are low fat? beef, chicken or pork; most would pick chicken.
But I also think it’s a cost issue, too. Chicken is a lot cheaper than pork and beef where I’m at. Going for boneless, skinless, lean cuts, we’re looking at something like $1.79 a pound for chicken breasts, $2.49 or so for pork loin, and the cheapest lean beef will be about $4-$5/lb, and we’re talking shitty cuts like eye of round.
It’s a floor wax and a dessert topping. People definitely believe chicken is low fat, but it also has the advantage of being lower in cost. It’s not just frozen food, restaurant menus have a lot more chicken dishes then they used to, for both reasons, popular belief that you can’t gain weight eating chicken, and it costs less (for the restaurant, the consumer may be getting a better deal from other meats when comparing the price of the dish to its ingredients.
Chicken also has a mild flavor that mixes well with other flavors - at least if we’re talking about the mass-produced chicken that we’re definitely talking about here. So it’s at least three things: chicken is cheap, it has a healthy reputation, and you can pour a wide variety of spices and sauces over it and call it a new dish.
You also never see pork used in pet food. My cat loves the stuff, and I have to give him a nibble if I am preparing it. He is not interested in any food but his own, unless it is pork.
The cuts that are leaner tend to be more expensive. For example, ground meat, nothing fancy. The cheaper options are around 20- 30% fat. To get to the leaner options, that have 10% or less of fat, may cost you a dollar or more than the cheaper, fattier version. In comparison, boneless, skinless, chicken thighs (which are cheaper generally than chicken breasts) can give you more amount of meat for less money (on a per pound basis).
Try Swanson’s “Hungry Man Dinners.” Many contain beef or pork, and not all the pasta that many frozen meals have these days. For carbs, they use mashed potatos.
It is for the specific cut that I mentioned above. And ground beef, being what it is, is one of the cheapest cuts of beef already. Most other cuts that I’ve seen are more expensive than ground beef (unless there is a special).
In addition to already mentioned reasons, followers of some religions are prohibited from eating pork. Including that as an option just limits your number of customers.