This afternoon I engaged students in Cuyahoga Community College’s culinary program in a workshop about the modern pork industry. We walked through how pigs are raised, how product is sold, and how primal cuts become pork chops, spareribs, and the like. Being culinary students, I expected that they would find the latter components of the workshop most interesting. I was surprised to find they were most enthusiastic about the production side of things. We discussed things such as the ingredients in a pig’s diet, how barns are temperature-controlled, and even the bio-security principles used on farms. Agriculture must continue to share its story! As I use in this workshop, new science plus new technology plus new management practices equals an efficiently produced, lean, nutritious product. The pork industry and agriculture in general must forge ahead with this good news!
The Other White Meat – Cuyahoga Community College style
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April 1, 2009 at 2:48 pm |
Marlene,
Excellent post! With so many of the issues today facing animal agriculture it is good that people want to learn about the REAL side of animal production rather than the bad hype.
I have been keeping up with this topic- and I have to in order to be a good AnSci teacher. I am very concerned with the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). If you go to their website, from the outside looking in, it seems they are all about saving the polar bear babies, or fuzzy woodland creatures…..however, their money (they get this from donations of the classic teenage kid or compassionate mother or good-doing celebrity) goes towards fighting safe, clean, humane, affordable animal production.
They say one thing then do another. If the HSUS attacks Ohio- which they have their finger pointed at the buckeye state right now- it will be horrible. The meat we consume will come from slower growing, probably heavier medicated, more expensive, lower quality livestock.
It is only humane to keep sows in farrowing pens! If we didn’t so many more baby pigs would be laid on and killed by their mothers! Chickens need to be separted! If they aren’t we would be eating eggs or meat from birds that aren’t as fresh or laid by an animal that could have pecked the smaller chickens to death (have people ever wondered where “pecking order” came from?).
Ohio is of course a Ballot-initiative state. That is why they are coming to Ohio BEFORE Indiana. I hope your fellow Buckeyes wake up and start promoting safe, clean, humane animal ag on the next level….if not, more farmers will go broke, food will become even more expensive and the vegan diet (the bottom line of HSUS) will have another tragic win.