10 Scary Reasons to Stop Eating Conventionally Raised Pork
Despite what you might hear in the media, it’s not just bacon that’s bad for you; conventionally raised pork is some of the worst meat you can eat – not just for you, but also for the environment. Here’s why it’s so bad, and how you can eat more sustainably – even without giving up bacon!
I have a confession to make: I hate store-bought pork. Even before I started learning about the health consequences, I couldn’t stand the taste of it. But now I have even more reasons not to eat it. While I will occasionally purchase “naturally raised” or free-range chicken from the supermarket, I don’t buy pork from the store – ever.
Instead, I get my meat – and especially my pork – from a local family farm where the pigs run around the grass, roll in the creek, and forage in the woods.
Not only is it absolutely the best tasting pork I have ever eaten, but I also don’t have to worry about the 10 scary facts about conventionally raised pork that are listed in this article! I suggest you take a close look at the facts, and see how you can also start making more sustainable choices when it comes to eating pork
1. Most Conventionally Raised Pork Products Are Contaminated With Disease-Causing Bacteria
In late 2012, Consumer Reports magazine purchased 240 whole and ground pork products and tested them for the presence of disease-causing bacteria. The results: 83 percent tested positive for E. coli, staph, Salmonella, and a bacterium called Yersinia enterocolitica, which can cause fever, diarrhea, and abdominal pain, all at levels that could make you sick….Why are all those disease-causing bacteria there? Factory-farmers who raise pigs or poultry or beef and dairy cattle, gobble up 80 percent of the antibiotics sold in the U.S.. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated that 67 percent of human diseases are of animal origin, and “there are a number of specific studies that have linked antibiotics in animals to drug-resistant human infections”….
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……………………………………….3. Conventionally Raised Pork Could Possibly Be The Cruelest Food You Eat
Pigs are intelligent creatures that can express and feel emotion, yet like all mass-produced animals, they’re shoved into cramped, dirty spaces, where frustration drives them to bite one another’s tails and ears off. Their pens are so tightly packed that the animals can barely turn around. Pregnant pigs are confined to gestation crates, which increases their risk of urinary tract infections, lameness, and weakened bones. Veterinarians also see behaviors in these confined sows that are indicative of depression and emotional trauma, according to the Humane Society of the United States.…………………………………………..
4. Pig Waste Lagoons Exist, + Are Among the Most Toxic Places On Earth
In a very unsettling exposé on Smithfield Foods—the largest pork producer in the U.S.—that ran in a 2006 issue of Rolling Stone magazine, a reporter was able to visit the massive concentrated animal-feeding operations (CAFOs) operated by the company. What he found was vile: Some of the largest hog operations house 500,000 pigs under a single roof and generate 26 million tons of excrement and waste each year…. The waste is saturated with drug residues, ammonia, methane, hydrogen sulfide, carbon monoxide, cyanide, phosphorous, nitrates and heavy metals, along with anything and everything that comes out of a hog house, including stillborn piglets. These operations commit repeated violations of the Clean Water Act; the Environmental Protection Agency has cited Smithfield alone thousands of times. And now that a Chinese conglomerate has bought Smithfield Foods, you can expect that number to grow, as Mark Bittman wrote in a recent editorial….5….
……………………………………………..6. U.S. Pork Is Banned In Some Countries, Thanks To Heavy Use Of A Drug Called Ractopamine
Here’s an ironic fact: The very U.S. pork that just came under ownership of a Chinese company can’t even be sold in China. That’s because Smithfield and other U.S. pork producers dose hogs with a drug called ractopamine, which, like antibiotics, is used to speed growth. Because of the drug’s iffy safety record, pork from hogs dosed with it is banned in 160 countries, including China….7. …
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………………………………………..9. Organic, Pastured Pork Has Higher Levels Of Heathy Fatty Acids
Healthy animals produce healthy meat, and pork is no exception. All animals, whether pigs, chickens, or cattle, that eat diets high in grass and forage have higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids and heart-healthy conjugated linoleic acid than confined animals. Those confined animals, on the other hand, feed on a no-grass diet heavy on genetically modified (and nutrient-poor) soy and corn. The stress of confinement lowers levels of B vitamins, zinc, iron, and other vital antioxidants in their systems, writes Dr. Ramsey. Pigs that forage outdoors in the sun also produce fat that has higher levels of vitamin D than factory-farmed pigs, and in fact, before pork became a factory product, lard was the primary source of vitamin D in the American diet, he notes.10. …
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Read the full article at RodalesOrganicLife.com…
