Read Lesser Beasts: A Snout-to-Tail History of the Humble Pig Online
Authors: Mark Essig
Lesser Beasts: A Snout-to-Tail History of the Humble Pig (30 page)
242
In the words of one European official
:
Richard Perren,
Taste, Trade and Technology
(Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006), 203; also see Joe Vansickle, “Pork Board Reacts to Welfare Demands,”
National Hog Farmer
, February 15, 2002.
242
The EU, for instance, has a stricter standard for “organic” pork
:
“Organically Grown Agricultural Products and Foodstuffs,” European Commission, October 6, 2008,
http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/other/l21118_en.htm
(accessed February 23, 2014).
242
Producers in Denmark have created a special category called the “welfare pig”
:
“New Welfare Pig for Danish Market,”
The Meat Site
, October 25, 2013,
http://
www.themeatsite.com/meatnews/22915/new-welfare-pig-for-danish-market
(accessed October 29, 2014).
242
Similar standards in the United Kingdom qualify a pig as “Freedom Food”
:
“Major Milestone for Welfare as McDonald’s Announce Switch to 100% Freedom Food Pork,” Freedom Food, April 2013,
http://www.freedomfood.co.uk /news/2013/04/mcdonalds
(accessed November 13, 2013).
242
The American Humane Association adopted the British Freedom Food standards
:
“Du Breton Natural Pork Earns Animal Welfare Certification,”
National Hog Farmer
, May 15, 2001.
242
The meat case at every Whole Foods store
:
“An Inside Look,” Global Animal Partnership,
http://www/globalanimalpartnership.org/about-us/an-inside-look
(accessed February 21, 2014).
243
The US Department of Agriculture maintains its own standards
:
“Meat and Poultry Labeling Terms,” US Department of Agriculture, October 24, 2014,
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/portal/fsis/topics/food-safety-education/get-answers /food-safety-fact-sheets/food-labeling/meat-and-poultry-labeling-terms/meat -and-poultry-labeling-terms
(accessed February 23, 2014); Katie Abrams, Courtney Meyers, and Tracy Irani, “Naturally Confused: Consumers’ Perceptions of All-Natural and Organic Pork Products,”
Agriculture and Human Values
27 (2010): 365–374.
243
These certifications serve as marketing tools
:
P. C. Thompson et al., “Livestock Welfare Product Claims,”
Journal of Animal Science
85 (2007): 2354–2360.
243
Confinement farming is “not better for the animals”
:
Jonathan Safran Foer,
Eating Animals
(New York: Little, Brown, 2009), 167.
244
Eventually, his network grew to hundreds of farms
:
Nicolette Hahn Niman,
Righteous Porkchop
(New York: Collins Living, 2009), 116–125; M. S. Honeyman et al., “The United States Pork Niche Market Phenomenon,”
Journal of Animal Science
84 (2006): 2269–2275.
244
“All our hogs are raised outdoors”
:
“All-Natural Pork,” Niman Ranch,
http://www.nimanranch.com/pork.aspx
(accessed November 21, 2013).
244
EcoFriendly Foods, for example, advertises that all of its pigs
:
“Pigs,” EcoFriendly Foods,
http://www.ecofriendly.com/pigs
(accessed November 17, 2013).
245
A study at Iowa State University estimated
:
Honeyman et al., “United States Pork Niche.”
245
More recent statistics are not available
:
“Hog Protocols,” Niman Ranch,
http://www.nimanranch.com/Protocols.aspx
(accessed November 17, 2013).
246
“Good welfare means that the base price of pork will inevitably rise”
:
Ruth Layton, “Animal Needs and Commercial Needs,” in
The Future of Animal Farming
, ed. Marian Dawkins and Roland Bonney (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2008), 90.
246
In fully pastured systems, with slower-growing heritage breeds
:
Honeyman et al., “United States Pork Niche,” 2272.
246
Then his partners process and cure the meat
:
Julie Robinson, “Porcine Perfection,”
Charleston Gazette
, October 1, 2011; C. W. Talbott et al., “Enhancing Pork Flavor and Fat Quality with Swine Raised in Sylvan Systems,”
Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems
21 (2006): 183–191; Chuck Talbott et al., “Potential for Small-Scale Farmers to Produce Niche Market Pork Using Alternative Diets, Breeds and Rearing Environments,”
Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems
19 (2007): 135–140; Peter Kaminsky,
Pig Perfect
(New York: Hyperion, 2005).
246
Talbott explains the dilemma of modern pork
:
Chuck Talbott, interview with author, October 15, 2012.
Epilogue
247
When presented with a salad or burrito
:
Technomic,
Center of the Plate: Beef and Pork Consumer Trend Report
(Chicago: Technomic, 2013).
247
Recent figures from the US Department of Agriculture show
:
Christopher Davis and Biing-Hwan Lin,
Factors Affecting U.S. Pork Consumption
(Washington, DC: US Department of Agriculture, 2005).
248
In 2013 the activist group Mercy for Animals released footage
:
Mercy for Animals, “Walmart Pork Supplier Caught Abusing Mother Pigs and Piglets,” YouTube, October 29, 2013,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embed ded&v=-KoVAkgPexU
(accessed February 24, 2014).
248
Recently, however, as cognitive and behavioral scientists have confirmed
:
Donald M. Broom, “Cognitive Ability and Awareness in Domestic Animals and Decisions About Obligations to Animals,”
Applied Animal Behaviour Science
126 (2010): 1–11.
248
British chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall calls pigs
:
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall,
The River Cottage Meat Book
(Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press, 2007), 112.
249
Activist Gail Eisnitz, who has investigated all types of animal cruelty
:
Nicolette Hahn Niman,
Righteous Porkchop
(New York: Collins Living, 2009), 215.
249
These sows, Jonathan Safran Foer writes in
Eating Animals: Jonathan Safran Foer,
Eating Animals
(New York: Little, Brown, 2009), 183.
249
That means that sows, after giving birth
:
Matthew Scully,
Dominion
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002), 266.
249
“The pigs are treated like shit”
:
Sarah Hepola, “A Wonderful, Magical Animal,”
Salon
, July 11, 2008,
http://www.salon.com/2008/07/11/magical_animal
(accessed October 29, 2014).
249
A few animal scientists have proposed
:
Adam Shriver, “Not Grass-Fed, but at Least Pain-Free,”
New York Times
, February 18, 2010.
250
That’s the position taken by Cromwell
:
Mercy for Animals, “Walmart Pork Supplier.”
250
In addition to working with the more familiar heritage breeds
:
Peter Kaminsky,
Pig Perfect
(New York: Hyperion, 2005).
250
The Roman historian Livy noted in the second century bc
:
Emily Gowers,
The Loaded Table
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 51.
251
No restaurants have resurrected the Roman recipe for roast udder
:
Dana Goodyear,
Anything That Moves
(New York: Riverhead, 2013), 74.
251
It sold well
:
Stephanie Strom, “Demand Grows for Hogs That Are Raised Humanely Outdoors,”
New York Times
, January 20, 2014.
251
Even as pork marketers flogged lean pork chops
:
David Sax, “The Bacon Boom Was Not an Accident,”
Businessweek
, October 6, 2013.
251
sales of lean pork stayed flat
:
J. L. Anderson, “Lard to Lean: Making the Meat-Type Hog in Post–World War II America,” in
Food Chains
, ed. Warren Belasco and Roger Horowitz (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009).
251
A couple of cooks in Kansas City found Internet fame
:
Jason, “Bacon Explosion: The BBQ Sausage Recipe of all Recipes,” BBQ Addicts, December 23, 2008,
http://www.bbqaddicts.com/blog/recipes/bacon-explosion
(accessed February 24, 2014).
252
Dozens of cities hosted bacon festivals
:
Erin Zimmer, “Bacon Bra,” Serious Eats, April 2, 2008,
http://www.seriouseats.com/2008/04/bacon-bra-brassiere-womens-edible-underwear.html
(accessed February 24, 2014).
252
It’s an indulgence, they write
:
Joshua Applestone, Jessica Applestone, and Alexandra Zissu,
The Butcher’s Guide to Well-Raised Meat
(New York: Clarkson Potter, 2011), 130.
253
“We have been raising happy, healthy pigs since 1994”
:
“Why Pastured Pork,” Wil-Den Family Farms,
http://www.wildenfamilyfarms.com/Main/pasturedpork.html
(accessed November 17, 2013).
253
EcoFriendly Farms reduces it to an equation
:
EcoFriendly Farms, “Pigs.” Also see C. W. Talbott et al., “Enhancing Pork Flavor and Fat Quality with Swine Raised in Sylvan Systems,”
Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems
21 (2006): 183–191.
253
If public concern drives further agricultural reforms
:
N. Pelletier et al., “Life Cycle Assessment of High-and Low-Profitability Commodity and Deep-Bedded Niche Swine Production Systems in the Upper Midwestern United States,”
Agricultural Systems
103 (2010): 599–608.
255
“You may end up paying twice as much”
:
Fearnley-Whittingstall,
River Cottage Meat Book
, 108.
255
The farmers’ markets and upscale grocers
:
Brad Weiss, “Configuring the Authentic Value of Real Food,”
American Ethnologist
39 (2012): 615–616, 623–624.
256
The majority of people, the study concluded
:
Jayson L. Lusk, F. Bailey Norwood, and Robert W. Prickett, “Consumer Preferences for Farm Animal Welfare” (working paper, Department of Agricultural Economics, Oklahoma State University, 2007), 13.
257
In historical terms, Americans now spend a tiny portion
:
Cynthia Northrup,
The American Economy
(Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2011), 102.
257
According to John McGlone, an agriculture professor
:
John McGlone, “Swine,” in
Animal Welfare in Animal Agriculture
, ed. Wilson G. Pond, Fuller W. Bazer, and Bernard E. Rollin (Boca Raton: CRC Press, 2012), 149.
Abrabanel, Isaac,
57
Acharnians
(Aristophanes),
67
Acorn-fattened hogs,
74
,
81–83
,
83(fig.)
,
87
,
102
,
117
,
125
,
137
,
138(fig.)
,
174
Adaptation, evolutionary
Chinese pigs’ move to England,
117
colonial agriculture,
138–139
forest pig,
79–80
Greek and Roman farming and breeding,
73–74
justifying confinement farming,
231
self-domestication of wild boars,
28–29
ungulates,
18–23
See also
Domestication
Affection for pigs,
188–191
Agriculture
breeding leaner pigs,
208–211
British empire,
131–132
China’s focus on grain and legume production,
115–116
colonial America,
134–136
construction of the pyramids,
44–45
Corn Belt,
154–158
crop production in developing countries,
235–236
decline of diversification,
223
destructive nature of pigs in New England,
142
Egypt and Mesopotamia,
45–48
English colonization of the Americas,
131–132
English seizure of Native lands,
134
federal subsidies,
227–228
grazing after the Black Death,
111
irrigation,
45
medieval decline in protein supply,
107–108
medieval urbanization,
95
Native Americans,
133
Native Americans’ acquisition of pigs,
140–143
northern Europe during the Paleolithic,
78–79
pigs’ consumption of by-products from,
111
,
112(fig.)
,
113
pioneers’ slash-and-burn practices,
146–148
production meeting global demand,
235–237
Roman Empire,
72–74
westward expansion,
145–146
,
160–161
See also
Cattle
;
Goats
;
Hog farming
;
Sheep
Alexander the Great,
60
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
(Carroll),
13
The
American City
journal,
203
American South, hog farming in,
185–188
Anderson, Virginia DeJohn,
135
Animal Farm
(Orwell),
5
Animal Machines
(Harrison),
239–240
Animal Protein Factor,
212
Animals, criminal trials of,
96–98
,
99(fig.)
Animal welfare
American resistance to regulation of,
241
brutality tainting the public image of pork,
248
confinement farming,
221–222
,
228–231
,
233–234
,
248–250
niche meats,
245–246
Niman Ranch practices,
243–245
pig park study,
239–240
The Jungle
(Sinclair)
195–197
traditional hog farming,
230–231
Anthrax,
57
Anthropocene era,
32
Antibiotic use in farming,
211–215
,
227–228
Anti-Semitism, European,
97–98
,
100–101
Applestone, Josh and Jessica,
252
Archeological finds,
27–29
,
35–36
,
38–40
Archer Daniels Midland,
236
Arthur (king),
83–84
Arrogance of pigs,
13
Assembly line,
170–173
Augustus,
71
Aurelian,
71
Aztecs, conquest of the,
126
Babe
(film),
248
Back to the Start
(film),
234
Backwoods farming,
145–146
,
153–154
Bacon,
86
,
103
,
109
,
149–150
,
175
,
201–202
,
208–209
,
251–252
“Bacon” (Clark),
147
Bacon bra,
252
Bacon Explosion,
252
Bacteria, antibiotic resistant,
227–228
Barbecue,
186–187
Bartholomew Fair
(Jonson),
110
Beef.
See
Cattle
Behavioral problems, confinement farming creating,
229–230
Benson, Ezra Taft,
223
Beowulf,
80
Berkshire breed,
159–160
,
189
,
209
,
216
,
245
,
250
Beverley, Robert,
139
Bezoar goat,
34
Bipedalism in humans,
23
Bison,
122
Black Death,
107–108
Black pudding,
191
Blood
“blood month,”
87
Christian anxiety over pork consumption,
94–95
hog slaughtering,
171
Islamic dietary laws,
102
Jewish dietary laws,
58–60
,
94
,
102
Roman cuisine,
70–71
the theory of humors,
98–99
Blood libel,
101
Bones: changing shape with domestication,
40
Borax,
198–199
Brambell Commission,
240
Breeding practices
American Corn Belt,
159–160
animal welfare and confinement farming,
229–230
breeding leaner pigs,
208–211
breeding less intelligent pigs,
249–250
colonial America’s open-range ranching,
138–139
corporate agriculture,
223–225
De Soto’s North American expedition,
126–127
diminishing flavor and quality,
218–219
gestation crates,
240
Greece and Rome,
73–76
inhumanity of confinement farming,
221–222
life-cycle hog farming,
216–217
medieval Europe’s food source,
87
New World conquest,
121
social behavior of pigs,
238–239
Britain/England
American cross-bred pigs,
159–160
animal welfare awareness,
240–242
colonization of North America,
131–132
global meat trade,
179
land seizure,
134
pig park study,
238–240
westward expansion,
145–146
See also
Colonial New England
Bryan, William Jennings,
16
Burger King,
241
The Butcher’s Guide to Well-Raised Meat
(Applestone and Applestone),
252
By-products of pork packing,
173–177
Caesar Augustus,
63–64
Camels,
122
Cannibalism,
12–13
,
100–101
,
203–204
,
249
Cato,
86
Cattle
agricultural methods,
214
beef consumption decline during the Great Depression,
199
colonial American agriculture,
137
corn-fed,
154–158
dairy,
72
,
111–113
,
135–136
,
140
,
211
direct marketing beef,
200–201
driving,
163–164
English “civilizing” of Native Americans,
134–135
,
140
feeding the Spanish army,
120–121
global beef production,
179
Latin American conquest,
128
per capita beef consumption,
177–178
pork consumption falling with the rise of beef consumption,
204–205
Roman Empire,
69
Cayönü Tepesi, Turkey,
38–40
Celts,
79–80
Central America
colonization by Spanish pigs,
123–128
switching from pigs to cattle and sheep,
151
The Chainbearer
(Cooper),
178
Chang, David,
249
Chanukah,
63
Charlotte’s Web
(White),
12–13
Cheape and Good Husbandry
(Markham),
111
Chefs advocating animal welfare,
248–251
Chester White breed,
160
,
209
,
216
,
245
Chicago, Illinois,
170–173
China
confinement farming,
234–235
corn-fed stock,
155
domestication of
Sus scrofa,
35–36
increasing demand for meat,
236–237
modernization of pork production,
236–237
pigs’ contribution to sanitation,
49–50
,
50(fig.)
pork-based cuisine,
236
value of pigs,
10
Chinese pigs,
138(fig.)
American Corn Belt stock,
159–161
in England,
136–137
in Europe,
114–115
Chipotle (restaurant),
234
Cholera,
184
Christianity
English conversion of Native Americans,
132
,
134–135
European anti-Semitism,
97–98
,
100–101
freedom from Jewish dietary laws,
93–95
historical view of pigs,
91–97
pigs’ fecundity,
93
pioneers,
146
pork as a symbol of faith,
101–103
Churchill, Winston,
14
Civil War,
187–188
Clark, Charles Badger,
147
Class.
See
Social class
Cleanliness of pigs
biblical view of pigs,
91–92
Jewish pork prohibition,
59–60
,
98
lack of sweat glands,
92–93
pigs as sacrificial animals,
67
See also
Sanitation
;
Scavenging
Climate change, livestock production contributing to,
227–228
Colicchio, Tom,
249
Colonial New England
British construction and planning,
131–135
hog farming,
135–140
hog laws,
182–184
labor shortage,
135–136
meat consumption,
177
Native Americans’ adaptation to pigs,
140–143
reliance on pigs,
151
westward expansion,
145–148
Columbus, Christopher,
119–123
Columella,
74
The Condition of the Working-Class in England
(Engels),
183
Confinement farming,
230(fig.)
American resistance to regulation of,
241
animal welfare and,
228–231
,
240–242
British welfare study,
240
China,
237(fig.)
consolidation of small farms,
223–224
contrasting pigs’ intelligence with living conditions,
248–249
ethical issues,
233–234
increasing meat consumption,
235–236
manure lagoons,
225–227
mechanism of,
214–219
opacity of industrialized production,
221–222
raising human awareness of,
249–250
returning to humane practices,
243–245
spread to developing countries,
234–235
Conquistadors,
123–127
Consumption of pork
American South,
187–188
decline during the Great Depression,
199
increase in developing countries,
235–236
meat hierarchies,
200
social status and,
106–109
,
177–178
Cook, Harold,
14
Cooking
expensive-tissue hypothesis,
23–24
trichinosis abatement,
202–204
See also
Cuisine
Cooper, James Fenimore,
178
Corn
breeding fatter pigs,
208–209
Chinese pig farming,
236–237
