Pork in a Poke

With most of the team here at Sustainable Table still reeling from our Eat Well Guided Tour of America, we’re still catching up with business as usual, including timely blogging of the food news. Although we often like to present a short roundup of the most interesting or newsworthy news clips, sometimes such a large number of interesting articles come out about one subject or another that we feel compelled to smoosh them all together into one post. Today is such a day, and the topic on our minds is…pork.

Today, Saskatoon’s StarPhoenix opines that pork and other meat should be drug-free, in response to China’s announcement that it is raising special organic pork for the athletes who will compete in next year’s Olympic Games in Beijing, because–get this–steroid levels in industrially-produced pork are high enough to cause Olympians to fail their drug tests. Whoa.

In other pork news, Reuters reported early last week that shares in Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork producer (and the subject of this creepy Rolling Stone article from last December), fell as its giant deal with China has been less fruitful than anticipated, a result of falling pork prices stateside and a recent increase in pork production in China, the country that leads the world in pork consumption. Last month, Smithfield had stock analysts drooling with reports of a loss to the tune of 20% of Chinese hogs to blue ear virus, which has killed tens of thousands of animals. Of course, the deal stipulated that the Smithfield pork would have to be free of ractopamine, a growth agent outlawed in many countries, which spurred the Chinese rejection of American and Canadian pork earlier this month.

According to the International Herald-Tribune, China dipped into its pork reserves last week in an effort to re-stabilize prices, which could be why the country isn’t buying as much as anticipated from Smithfield, except that analysts point out that the 30,000 tons of pork being released amount to a “drop in the bucket,” considering that China consumes between 130,000 and 150,000 tons of pork a day.

The good news in pork? Simply Recipes posted an inspiring (and adorable) piece about Paul Willis’s Iowa pig farm, which Diane visited on August 24. Paul sells his pork to Niman Ranch, which could be considered the conscientious omnivore’s Smithfield, and Elise Bauer, who publishes Simply Recipes (which just so happens to host the largest food blogroll I’ve ever seen), reports that the pigs were happy!

Not enough porcine goodness for you? Check out this Independent Weekly article on Mike Jones’s free range pig farm. To bring this post around full-circle, before going free-range and independent, Mike worked on a number of CAFOs, some of which now sell their wares to Smithfield. (Tip of the hat to the fabulous Ethicurean blog, home of the cutest pig mascot ever, for bringing both these feel-good stories to our attention).

Want to steer clear of steroids and support a family farmer who uses sustainable, humane methods? Check out our Eat Well Guide and find a farm near you.