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Bacon with benefits

PATRICK WHITE

From Wednesday's Globe and Mail

Latest comment posted at 1:49 PM EDT 19/03/08

Raised on a specialized mix of flax and grains, healthful piggies enriched with selenium and omega-3 have left the farm and gone to market ...Read the full article

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  1. Eric the Red from Uzbekistan writes: 'It's not as if the other white meat is now fishy,' said Joe Schwartz, director of McGill University's Office for Science and Society. 'Simply fortifying a product with oil from flax or soy is not going to make it the same as fish.'

    This sums it up perfectly. Stupid marketing ploy that was lucky enough to get press coverage. Again, G& M headline denotes something entirely different.

    ''We're always tinkering,' Mr. Hoffmann said.'

    Exactly - enjoy your modified food....
  2. Ricky for a Centrist Canada from Canada writes:
    Yay!

    Extra bacon, please....
  3. Pepper Gee from Toronto, Canada writes: Hmmmm... I just read on another site how Canadian pork products have been found to have an antibiotic-resistant Staph contamination..... Yum yum.... eat up the little piggies. Seriously though... go veg.
  4. Marley B from Vancouver, Canada writes: Still smoked with cancer causing nitrates? The health benefit is negated by this.
  5. guy tozer from Saskatoon, Canada writes: I want to see bacon that isn't 90%fat and 10% pork. Now there is a challenge porkie producers
  6. Diane Mc from Canada writes: Pigs are intelligent, social and altruistic. This is sickening. Stop eating them, vitamin fortified or not. Check goveg , euroveg and many other sites. Your taste buds are not the seat of ethical behaviour.
  7. The Religious Left from Canada writes:
    Diane Mc from Canada writes: Pigs are altruistic.

    Well lucky for them, their lives are benefiting us by giving us bacon.
  8. YVAN FONTAINE from Montreal, Canada writes: Hi !
    How about having your omega-3 directly from flax oil with good response to your brain. Improve sleep, balance, gums health, etc.

    Read this research by Seth Roberts (PhD ) on his blog.

    http://tinyurl.com/25mhc7

    Have a nice day !
  9. Ricky for a Centrist Canada from Canada writes:
    Mmmmmmm.......baaaaaaaaaaaaaacon.
  10. Mark H from Indy, United States writes: So synthetic hormones = bad.

    Synthetic vitamins and fats = good.

    Nice logic.

    And to Diane Mc: If pigs are so intelligent, why aren't they eating us? You know why you eat a pig? Because IT'S MADE OUT OF FOOD.
  11. Rocky Blanco from Kavs, Canada writes: Once they're finished adding omega-3, I'd like to see them add a little aphrodisiac. With Canada's falling birthrate it could be justified in terms of national interest.
  12. guy tozer from Saskatoon, Canada writes: Diane Mc. Life is a oneway trip, no God ,Hell or afterlife. Enjoy what there is in your 'short' trip, even altruistic swine. I love these veggie people. They buy organic, then go and buy an herbal spread loaded with chemicals. Oh and piggie puffs are fantastic . try some !!
  13. T A from Canada writes: 'Raised on a specialized mix of flax and grains, healthful piggies enriched with selenium and omega-3 have left the farm and gone to market'...

    The point is that when livestock is fed proper feed, opposed to filler or by-products, the result is better meat that is healthier for human consumption. Chickens product eggs rich in omega-3's, because they are being fed a diet high in omega-3's via flax seed in their feed.

    The adage rings true, 'You are what you eat.' If anything, meat producers are simply going back to the way things use to be through 'old-fashioned' farming practices, with science helping obtaining the most advantageous feed bleed. Although with fed prices already high, one will be paying even more for that healthier bacon...
  14. John Smith from Canada writes: Two years ago, we used to love Mitchells' bacon (through Loblaws). Then PC bacon seemed to displace Mitchells bacon. And then the bacon started to taste weird, or have no taste at all.

    Something changed -- friends agree too that bacon doesn't taste the way it used to.

    Chock it up to new piggie diets...
  15. stand up mimi from Canada writes: Pigs are altruistic? Explain that to them when they're jumping all over each other to get to the food first. Don't get me wrong - I like pigs, but let's not give them superhuman attributes.

    Pastured pork is the way to go. You can give them all the rich feed you want, but if they're still crammed into buildings living a nasty life shoulder to shoulder and standing in filth, their health will be compromised and they'll still be shot full of drugs. Anyway, pastured beef has more omega 3s than feedlot beef, so I imagine the same is true of pork. Left on their own, pigs will choose the best food available.
  16. Globular Cluster from AZ, United States writes: It's a mighty sick society that promotes/funds this type of work and lauds it as 'progress'. As others have mentioned above, there is no reason to eat meat and omega-3's can easily be obtained from plant sources.
  17. Sue City from Canada writes: 'prize for pork innovation' - what the?!

    Farmer creates mutant pig that eats its own butt because it tastes so good... news at 11.
  18. guy tozer from Saskatoon, Canada writes: Pepper Gee: Not only are piggy puffs 'great' but also deer and moose and squirrel and rabbit, and muskrats. Go to the shores of lake St Clair in the spring for muskrat dinners,mmmmmmmmm. You are missing sooooo much in your dull and yuppie tree hugging life! Enjoy a frog leg once in a while .
  19. Kevin Desmoulin from Toronto, Canada writes: You truly are what you eat. Meat is ok in limited amounts, moderation.
  20. Nassar Ben Houdja from Canada writes: Hard to get better than mustard muskrat, on a stick.
  21. Globe Insider subscriber content
    Archie Wellford from Canada writes: guy tozer from Saskatoon, Canada writes: I want to see bacon that isn't 90%fat and 10% pork. I guess the tozie guy from saskabush has never heard of 'Canadian' bacon. Which make you wanna pay close attention to his additional sillinesses.
  22. A C from Albertario, Canada writes:
    @Eric the Red,

    Your comment is exactly right. The McGill comment should have been the headline, and the media is equally culpable in this mess of a food industry when they publish and promote articles like this one.
    Scientists cannot isolate some elements of omega 3's and think they've come anywhere close to salmon in a pig. It's the height of misplaced intelligence that comes off as sheer stupidity to think they've done anything more than porcine Wonder bread here.

    Whatever happened to the simple idea of producing real food?

    Generations of scientists are wasting their lives on crap like this. How sad is that.

    .
  23. guy tozer from Saskatoon, Canada writes: Archie Wellford: As a matter of fact I make my own " Canada bacon" also called Peameal bacon. I make all my own sausages and smoked meats, avoiding all the chemical soup of processors. I was referring to the thin fat strips of bacon people buy in 500 gram packs, you know the one where they display the thin strip of meat through the cellophane window and hide the other 90 % fat under the cardboard. Also Archie my savings are more than 2/3 less than store bought meats. So pay attention Arch!, and cut yourself a slab of peameal. LOW fat
  24. tired horses from Canada writes: Michael Pollan's "In Defense Of Food" talks about this so called
    science of nutritionism, and puts it just where it belongs, which is along with all the other Frankenfood tinkering that brought us Tang, CoolWhip, margarine, Oreos with 'fibre' and now, bacon with omega 3s. Just let the pig and chicken and cows eat what pigs and chicken and cows eat. I don't want a designer egg, but it's getting harder and harde to find real food.

    Eggs from chickens fed a vegetarian diet? LOL. I want eggs from chichken that has eaten bugs and grass roots. And I especially don't want flax seed in my food. It's a phytoestrogen.
  25. Mr. Coffee from Victoria, Canada writes: If I wanted a sermon, I'd go to church. Now pass the HP Sauce and go preach vegan-ism to someone else.
  26. Doug Dewan from Calgary, Canada writes: I asked a Muslim friends why it was they couldn't eat pork - she said that it was because in the Torah they are forbidden to eat any animal with a cloven hoof as this is an unclean animal. So I proposed to her - what if they genetically modified the pig to have a regular hoof......apparently she said it still wouldn't fly. For a minute there I thought I found a loophole to opening up a whole other market for the pork industry....Kosher pork! ;)
  27. Pepper Gee from Toronto, Canada writes: Doug Dewan from Calgary... Muslims read the Koran, Jewish people read the Torah. You make it sound as though Muslims are looking for "Kosher" meat. Jewish people eat Kosher... not Muslims. Mulsims eat Halal meat. Sheesh.... you Westerners....
  28. X. T. from Canada writes: Pepper Gee from Toronto, Canada writes: Doug Dewan from Calgary... Muslims read the Koran, Jewish people read the Torah. You make it sound as though Muslims are looking for "Kosher" meat. Jewish people eat Kosher... not Muslims. Mulsims eat Halal meat. Sheesh.... you Westerners....
    -------------------------
    Actually there isn't much difference between Kosher meat and Halal. I once had a Jewish student. I talked to him. He said he buys Halal here because Kosher is hard to find.

    Anyway, I like bacon but I would never use that as a source of Omega 3/6. If you want that, just use some sesame oil.
  29. Murray Braithwaite from Canada writes: We were just in Vermont and enjoyed braised pork belly at a restaurant owned and run by wife (chef) and husband (maitre d') local organic farmers. I had never had pork so succulent and this must partily be attributed to their strict attention to the feed and health of their livestock. Contrary to what some claim above, animals are not what they eat--they are what they do with what they eat. For example, feed cows too much grain and the pH in the stomach will drop below 6.0, killing the Butyrivibrio fibrisolvens bacteria that convert linoleic acid and linolenic acid into transvaccenic acid, which the mammary glands convert into conjugated linolenic acid (CLA)--a good trans fat ruminants have evolved to produce naturally. That is, eating too much carbohydrates degrades the fatty acid profile of the milk (and meat). It also causes the animal to store saturated fat, which is why cattle are fed grain before aslaughter--to boost the fat marbling to 'achieve' AAA grade status under our bizarre meat classification system. Thus grain-fed animals (fat-laden) are not what they eat (carbohydrates). Varying the feed profile (pasture, dried grass in winter, silage, flax, soy, etc.) is nothing like unnatrual modification of the animals. Pigs are omnivores, and it is hardly unnatural to try various diet combinations and then test the effect of the fatty acid profile of the meat. Indeed, nutrionists might learn a thing or two about the effect of varying human diet. The only things unnatural in animal diets are starch-laden cereal grains, which are the artifical byproduct of generations of human-engineered selective breeding.

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