Offalgood

Chef Chris Cosentino’s educational and inspirational tool for those who are interested in learning about and cooking with offal.

Do you know where your bacon comes from??

The other day I opened a Rolling Stone Magazine to find this expose about industrial hog farming “Boss Hog”. People freak out if you leave your dog in the car while you buy a quart of milk. But its ok to lock 5000 pigs in a confinment center to wallow in there own shit festering with diseases, so close togther all they can do is bite the tail of the pig in front of them. This is the true face of ” the other white meat”, What a load of shit.

Take a long hard look at this article and let it sink in. You the consumer can change this problem, dont buy these meats be sure you know where your pork comes from. I know where my hogs come from and I am pround to support Range Brothers, and I can taste the difference.

Leave a Comment (20)

  1. I read that article too and was totally appalled at the way industrial farming treats these animals. The more stories like this surface , the more people get offended and hopefully pursue change by getting their meat from reputable sources. In Toronto we’re lucky to have places like the St. Lawerence Market and The Healthy Butcher who specialize in locally grown and/or organic meats. The sacrifice of a life for your dinner should encourage you to treat that life as well as possible in the time between.

    frank | | Reply
  2. Quit crying people have got to eat somehow and i do not see anyone else slaughtering them. Don’t eat it if you don’t want to but stop whining about it because people gotta eat.

    tom | | Reply
  3. this is the sadest thing i ever seen thats wrong i mean come on 5000 pigs how would they feel if i through them in too the should have a heart

    samantha | | Reply
  4. The picture of the large pile of dead pigs was from the hurricane that hit the east coast several years ago. There were a lot of livestock deaths from flooding from that storm. Not only pigs but cattle and chickens also. I have been in the pig farming business for over 30 years and what a lot of non farming people dont seem to understand is that it is a business. It takes thousands of dollars a year to raise and feed pigs. Buildings to raise pigs in cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to build. Any farmer that has a full grasp of how to properly take care of pigs knows that keeping them cool in the summer and warm in the winter in a clean enviroment is going to be more profitable than raising them in a filthy poor enviorment. Again it is a business and the goal is to make money not lose money. Not giving your pigs the best enviorment to live in is going to cost more money than you save by raising them in bad conditions. The days of pigs being raised in outside lots is primarily in the past becouse the pigs are exposed to the temperature extremes of hot summer weather and below zero winter weather. This is not healthy for pigs since they do not sweat and cannot take very hot weather very well. This is why they enjoy rolling in mud, it helps keep them cool in hot weather.In moderen day buildings ther are water misters that cool the pigs along with fans that blow cool air on them from cool cell pads that lower the air temperature by 15 to 20 degrees. This is why pigs are not raised outside as was done in the past, there was no way to control the pigs enviroment and to keep them cool and warm.

    Deb | | Reply
  5. Deb. is right.
    Pig farming today just about requires a college degree. A lot of pig farmers have a lot of money and a lot of government money at stake. I grew up on a swine farm in the late 60′s and early 70′s.
    Today, things are very sanitary to the point, when you leave one barn to enter another you have
    to stop and take a shower and change cloths. And if you have ten barns on your farm, its a pain in the yehaw……So who ever you are trying to degrade the hard working swine farmers, get off it. These people are out to make a living and you are out to destroy it. USDA means inspected.
    later..

    hammer | | Reply
  6. Of course, you do realize that you buying “pork” from a somewhat more reputable source will only be the lesser of two evils. If you’re concerned about the well-being of pigs, why eat them in the first place? No matter how nice a meat producer might seem, they’re still killing an animal for you to eat it. In our industrial, modernized society, it’s not only entirely unnecessary to eat meat to survive, but clearly at odds with a concern for animal well-being, which you are clearly demonstrating (and which I admire).

    Justin | | Reply
  7. So sad, pigs are my favorite animals and we bread them I think that keeping pigs like this should be banned. what do MAF think? if they agree then why are they doing their job? if they saw that and agreed with the way these people are keeping pigs they should quit!!!

    buffy | | Reply
  8. some of yall are just stupid…pigs are clean animals by nature, its true that they cant sweat and they do roll in mud to get cool, and swine farms today are very clean and aware of biosecurity, and if its not approved by the USDA then it wont be in the store for you to eat…so someone had to think it was ok for your consumption!

    thing | | Reply
  9. that is just wrong i cant belive that they would do that to all those pigs they could have been use but that stupid preson had to kill them all they are fucking dumb

    pigs101 | | Reply
  10. It’s obvious that some of you don’t read the posts of others. It appears some of you are just looking at the picture of the dead pigs and jumping to conclusions.

    I think it is stupid to pander to these people about ethical treatment of animals when they were bred to be consumed in the first place. If you want ethical treatment, you should make sure they don’t feel a thing when they’re put down for slaughter, not give them residence at Club Med.

    Every time I see one of these articles it’s always about the cute animals. I don’t hear anyone crying about slaughtering alligators or ostriches or any other UGLY looking animal for it’s skin or whatever for whatever purpose.

    plinky | | Reply
  11. I wonder how you would feel if you knew that you were being raised only to lose ur brief and lonely life to feed someone else. Its bad enough that they actaully slughter animals but to treat them so badly before they unjustly take their lives from them is inexcusable. Did you know that pigs are boiled alive and cut up when there concious so they feel every ounce of pain.

    Sarah | | Reply
  12. This is totally the oppostie of how pigs are raise. I am currently raising pigs and pigs stay clean as a whistle if you let them. They do not carry diseases unless they are not vaccinated. People need to quit spreading the rumors about how animals get the shaft of very thing and the farmers are cruel to them.

    And as for pigs being boiled alive, thats not true at all, i think you need to take an ag processing class or go witness it yourself, they are brain dead and don’t feel a thing by the time they get to that point. It is not cruel it is done as humane as ever! IF you didn’t slaughter animals they would be over populating the earth. ya’ll need to bet your facts right before you just start accusing people of stuff. Ya’ll city slickers need to read up a little and do research before you start rambling your mouth

    Ive been raising pigs for many years and i love my pigs, but it is just a fact of life that some get slaughtered and others dont. I raise mine for show so,not all of them are raised for slaughter.

    GRR!

    Amanda | | Reply
  13. Ya sure, Amanda. The same thing is true of humans though.
    Hell today, pigs are probably treated better than most people in third world countries, with pigs getting thier vaccinations. Makes allot of sense.

    If any of you had some sense to what is important, you would learn to adress the real problems in the world other than some worthless pig inhumane bullshit.

    rkl | | Reply
  14. You dont have a clue what goes on in the real world.. i dont know why people read your bull shit which in most cases is over exaggerated bollax

    Dave | | Reply
  15. I hate to break it to you folks but someone is scamming you. Sadly yes there are people in this world who are cruel enough to mistreat these animals like this, but in most cases the people who do raise feeder pigs are doing it right. I myself am starting up in this buisness, and to tell you the truth people like the editors of rolling stone who allowed this to be published have failed to add the facts, they make it seem like this is how it is for all animals, and it is people like the author who wrote this “expose” and people with organizations like P.E.T.A. (People for the ethical Treatment of Animals) who are influencing the decisions of thousands, and swaying them to go against the pork, and beef markets as well as the poultry markets. At what cost.If you stop buying all you are doing is causing these people to lose money, and then inturn you are taking the food right out of these animals mouths. You are taking the money away from projects to build bigger facilities for these animals, and causing more damage.
    So next time you are staring at the meat section thinking about things like rainbows and puppy dogs, and you think hell, I’ll just have a salad instead,think about the quality of like for these animals every time you open your hypocritical mouths and close your minds.

    Lonna | | Reply
  16. we as the most intelligent race are privileged to have pepole in the mind frame to own or work in abattoirs and to supply us with meat that is of a good quality, farmers who run farms wether it is for pork, beef, lamb, chicken, turkey or any other meat for that matter. however as i am a student (16 yrs old) studying a national diploma in animal management i have very strong views on how animals should be and are kept and i think that anyone that does anything wrong to an animal or keeps animals cruely should have that done unto themselves.

    people need to read other posts before commenting and when i was reading the posts before mine i was really annoyed to see that people had written stuff like…”that is just wrong i cant belive that they would do that to all those pigs they could have been use but that stupid preson had to kill them all they are fucking dumb” and “thats mean who would do that!! bitches”…. MOTHER NATURE DID THAT!! these pigs were killed by a hurricane along side thousands of other livestock, so just read before commenting.

    remember people should do unto others as they would wish to be treated. Fairly.

    Ta Dom x

    Dom16 | | Reply