Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival
The second annual Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival will be held at El Bait Shop in Des Moines, Iowa on February 28, 2009. Click here for more information and to purchase your tickets today - this event will sell out quickly! Unfortunately I wasn't able to attend last year but will be there to get my bacon on this year. So come eat some bacon with me and a couple hundred other fun-loving members of the Bacon Nation!
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Posted by Heather at
1/15/2009
4 Comments:
Not to be "that person" who comes in all debbie downer, but I was just hoping you could voice the other side of the bacon love story for anyone who cares to be enlightened.
Did you know that mother pigs in factory farms in the U.S. live most of their lives in individual crates that are 7 feet long and 2 feet wide? They display signs of extreme boredom and stress, such as biting the bars of their cages and gnashing their teeth. Their piglets are taken away three weeks after birth and packed into pens until they are singled out to be raised for breeding or for meat. Like chickens and turkeys, pigs are genetically manipulated and pumped full of drugs, and many become crippled under their own weight. Although pigs are naturally affable and social animals, the confinement of these crowded pens causes neurotic behaviors such as cannibalism and tail-biting, so farmers use pliers to break off the ends of piglets’ teeth and cut off their tails without any painkillers.
Pigs are transported through all weather extremes, often freezing to the sides of transport trucks in leading pig-slaughtering states like Iowa and Nebraska or dying from dehydration in states like North Carolina. According to the industry, more than 1,000,000 pigs die en route to slaughter each year.
At the slaughterhouse, improper stunning means that many hogs reach the scalding-hot water baths—which are intended to soften their skin and remove their hair—while they are still conscious. U.S. Department of Agriculture inspection records documented 14 humane slaughter violations at one processing plant, including finding hogs who “were walking and squealing after being stunned [with a stun gun] as many as four times.” A PETA investigation found that workers at an Oklahoma farm were killing pigs by slamming the animals’ heads against the floor and beating them with a hammer.
By
She-Ra Princess of Power, at 10:21 AM
feel free to tell the side of the story you want to tell, and i'll feel free to talk about the stuff i want to talk about. that's the beauty of living in a free country.
all i will say about your comment is that you are right in that there are bad actors in the industry - just like any industry. but have you ever actually spent any time at a "confinement" hog farm? because i have. and most of the people who raise hogs for a living using this method are good people who follow the rules and comply with the humane practices as enforced by the USDA. so it's unfair to categorize the entire industry based on the actions of a few bad players.
and besides that, these farmers are just producing hogs based on consumer demand. what people who complain about confinement operations don't realize is most of those hogs have been bred for that purpose. you are right in that they are leaner than hogs 100 years ago, but the reality of that is that these breeds wouldn't survive out in the pasture. and they are producing a meat that the consumer has demanded.
but because of consumer demand, raising hogs using traditional methods is not an economically viable approach. fortunately an alternative industry that focuses on more "natural" methods has grown over the last 20 years, and if you prefer to spend more money for meat from those farms, then that is your choice. if at some point the market decides that more expensive, organic/free range meat is what they want, then the market will adjust itself.
thanks for stopping by.
By
Heather, at 10:32 AM
Heather,
Great comment!
Can't wait to enjoy bacon with you at Bacon Fest.
By
MrBaconpants, at 11:18 AM
I can't believe you'll be in Iowa eating bacon on my birthday!
By
Colleen, at 8:12 PM
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