Food For Thought

Food is something that’s almost always on our minds (ok, mine at least) and for a good reason.  It keeps us alive.  But our generation has also seen a lot of heated debates and battles over food and the way it’s produced: organic versus industrial versus local versus sustainable and the list goes on and on.  It all ends in the grocery store (or Co-op, of course) and your hand reaching for the $10 jar of organic peanut butter or… the $3 jar of Jiffy. 

I don’t even pretend to be anything of an expert on this subject but I ran across a New York Times article by James McWilliams the other day that piqued my interest.  It tackles the subject of health benefits of free-range pig farming versus industrially raised pigs and was prompted by a recent study done by the National Pork Board, published in Foodborne Pathogens journal.  The study looked at 600 pigs and compared rates of disease-causing agents such as Salmonella, a bacteria, and two parasites, toxoplasma and trichinella, and it showed higher rates of all three in free-range pigs.  Most disturbing is the presence of the trichinella, a nasty, often deadly parasite that is not found in any industrially raised pigs.  In fact, the pork industry was so sure that this parasite was history that it suggested that eating your pork a little pink would not be harmful.  But with trichinella on the loose again doing that could be deadly.  This new information is bound to make you wonder whether the free-range option is actually a healthier option.  It brings us back to the realization that the tightly regulated diets and medicinal applications that the typical pig goes through before slaughter was all implemented for a reason in the first place, even if these practices have been taken to extremes.  

What we’re left with it this: industrially raised hogs are exposed to a barrage of antibiotics and live undeniably pretty miserable lives; free-range hogs may harbor deadly parasites and bacteria.  But these killers can all be eliminated by thorough cooking of meat, and the potential health benefits of eating meat raised more naturally  (not to mention the superior flavor of the meat) seem to outweigh the risk of food poisoning, a risk that exists with all meat. 

So why don’t we all move to the free-range option?  Poking around a little more I found out some other surprising facts: pork is the most widely eaten meat in the world and is a $48.5 billion industry.  This means that a large chunk of the world, including many developing countries, depends on the production of pork as a major source of protein.  This brings us to the other issue with free-range pork production: cost.  While the average cut of industrially raised pork clocks in at about $2.90 per pound, you will be shelling out $12 on average for the same amount of free-range pork.  I cannot think of many people in America who would be willing to spend more that four times what they need to for a cut of meat, and this sort of cost is just not manageable in many other countries.  

So if the issue was simply health and meat flavor, I and probably most other Americans would lean towards the free-range option.  But if you add in the cost aspect, and ask that pesky question that we all hate to have to ask: “how would this effect people other than me“…. then the answer to whether or not we should raise only free-range pork is not so easily answered.  For now, I think the best option is to have both alternatives on the shelf and let the individual consumer decide for himself in peace.