Lesser Beasts: A Snout-to-Tail History of the Humble Pig (30 page)

BOOK: Lesser Beasts: A Snout-to-Tail History of the Humble Pig
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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

invention of,
27–28
,
30–32

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

Alcohol production,
136
,
156

Alexander the Great,
60

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
(Carroll),
13

The
American City
journal,
203

American South, hog farming in,
185–188

Anatomy, human,
14–21
,
21(fig.)

Anderson, Virginia DeJohn,
135

Anglo-Saxons,
80–81
,
94
,
150–151

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

Antiochus IV,
60–61
,
63

Anti-Semitism, European,
97–98
,
100–101

Apicius,
69–70
,
84

Applestone, Josh and Jessica,
252

Archeological finds,
27–29
,
35–36
,
38–40

Archer Daniels Midland,
236

Aristophanes,
50–51
,
67

Arthur (king),
83–84

Artiodactyla,
18–20
,
24

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,
110
,
252

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

animal sacrifice,
14
,
67

“blood month,”
87

Christian anxiety over pork consumption,
94–95

hog by-products,
176
,
191

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

Carrion,
51
,
59–60
,
94

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

Egyptian agriculture,
44
,
48

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

Cincinnati, Ohio,
169–170
,
177

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

Climate shifts,
29–32
,
35

Cloven foot,
18
,
55
,
58–59

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

China,
10
,
114–116
,
236

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

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