James E. McWilliams is a history professor at Texas State University at San Marcos and the author of the soon to be released book, “Just Food: How Locavores Are Endangering the Future of Food and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly.” He recently contributed an op-ed piece to the New York Times titled,
Free-Range Trichinosis:.
“The study published in the journal Foodborne Pathogens and Disease that brought these findings to light last year sampled more than 600 pigs in North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin. It discovered not only higher rates of salmonella in free-range pigs (54 percent versus 39 percent) but also greater levels of the pathogen toxoplasma (6.8 percent versus 1.1 percent) and, most alarming, two free-range pigs that carried the parasite trichina (as opposed to zero for confined pigs). For many years, the pork industry has been assuring cooks that a little pink in the pork is fine. Trichinosis, which can be deadly, was assumed to be history.
….
The fact that we’ve lost our way and found ourselves locked in the mess of factory farming, should not deter us from realizing that — if we genuinely hope to produce pork that’s safe and tasty — instead of setting the animal world partly free, we might have to take greater control of it. Do not underestimate the importance of this challenge. After all, if clean and humane methods of production cannot be developed, there’s only one ethical choice left for the conscientious consumer: a pork-free diet.
I think Professor McWilliam’s list of choices is a bit limited there. Clean and humane as possible sources of production are already in existence on many small farms. And I prefer to cook pork that tastes like pork until the ‘pink’ is gone, rather than eat the Soylent Green produced by big factory farm pork operations today. If the preternatural taste and texture of factory farmed pork isn’t enough to give you a clue, the Rolling Stone article, Boss Hog, should do the trick.
Perhaps Professor McWilliam’s book will have a game plan for converting the environmental and inhumane horrors that are now factory farm hog operations into something acceptable, but I cannot imagine how that could be done.
If one does not want to eat a pork-free diet, eating a lesser quantity of properly cooked small farm pork seems perfectly responsible to me.
Updates:
La Vida Locavore: Why didn’t Op-Ed author reveal National Pork Board paid for Trichinosis study?
Professor James McWilliams has responded to questions raised on numerous blogs.
2 responses so far ↓
James Stoicheff // April 10, 2009 at 11:18 pm
To be fair, he also says that the most ethical choice may be to avoid pork entirely.
thedailybite // April 11, 2009 at 4:17 am
Thanks for your comment, James. I think I’ll need to read Professor McWilliam’s book before I can really get the context of what he is saying in that article. The title of his book is a bit provocative; I’d almost call it a red cape that will have many parasite-ridden locavores charging at it in no time.
I’ve put in a request for the book at the local library so I can see what he has to say.
Like gas stations in rural Texas after 10 pm, comments are closed.