{"id":1826,"date":"2012-01-26T20:48:52","date_gmt":"2012-01-27T02:48:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/realfoodhouston.com\/?p=1826"},"modified":"2014-07-12T18:32:51","modified_gmt":"2014-07-12T23:32:51","slug":"another-good-reason-to-buy-local-pastured-pork","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/2012\/01\/26\/another-good-reason-to-buy-local-pastured-pork\/","title":{"rendered":"Another good reason to buy local, pastured pork!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Hogs<\/a>Helena Bottemiller of The Food and Environment Reporting Network<\/a> says “few Americans outside of the livestock industry have ever heard of ractopamine.”\u00a0 Well,\u00a0I certainly had never heard of ractopamine\u00a0before reading her article<\/a>\u00a0today.\u00a0\u00a0Apparently it’s a drug fed to pigs right up until slaughter to “keep pigs lean and boost their growth.”\u00a0 Why\u00a0is this now making news?\u00a0 Europe, China, Taiwan, and other countries “have banned its use, citing concerns about its effect on human health.”\u00a0 Chinese officials are especially concerned because of “higher residues in organ meats<\/em>, which are consumed in China.”\u00a0 [emphasis mine]\u00a0These countries do not want our pork\u00a0 because it\u00a0still has traces of the drug in the meat.\u00a0 Why should we be concerned?\u00a0 Ractopamine is fed to 60 to 80 percent of pigs in the U.S., and “has sickened or killed more of them than any other livestock drug on the market, Food and Drug Administration records show.\u00a0\u00a0Cattle and turkeys have also suffered high numbers of illnesses from the drug.”\u00a0 You got it, ractopamine makes the pigs sick, cattle and turkeys too, and there are traces of the drug still in the meat after slaughter.\u00a0 Just how bad is it?\u00a0\u00a0Here’s\u00a0how Helena Bottemiller describes it:<\/p>\n

Since it was introduced, ractopamine had sickened or killed more than 218,000 pigs as of March 2011, more than any other animal drug on the market, a review of FDA veterinary records shows. Pigs suffered from hyperactivity, trembling, broken limbs, inability to walk and death, according to FDA reports released under a Freedom of Information Act request.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What is the U.S. reaction to this controversy?\u00a0 Ban or limit\u00a0the drug?\u00a0 Oh, no! “U.S. trade officials are now pressing more countries to accept meat from animals raised on ractopamine.”\u00a0 “Their effort focused on a relatively obscure corner of the trade world \u2014 the U.N.\u2019s Codex Alimentarius Commission, which sets global food-safety standards.”\u00a0 The commission\u00a0can’t decide “what, if any,\u00a0level of ractopamine is safe in meat.” \u00a0Why the push?\u00a0 U.S. pork exports to China\u00a0“quadrupled from 2005 to 2010 . . .\u00a0but are still only 2-3 percent of the market.”\u00a0 In other words, the U.S. wants a bigger share of the market.<\/p>\n

Why do U.S. producers want to continue giving\u00a0ractopamine to pigs? “Pigs fed the drug in the last weeks of their life produce an average of 10 percent more meat . . . That raises profits by $2 per head.”\u00a0 Taiwan found traces of ractopamine in American beef and pork when it began testing last year–meat was pulled from shelves.<\/p>\n

Just last Monday, the Supreme Court unnanimously overturned<\/a> a California law that required slaughterhouses to\u00a0immediately euthanize animals that cannot walk.\u00a0 Federal law takes precedence–federal inspectors at slaughterhouses have the final word when livestock are to sick to stand.\u00a0 Too sick to stand?\u00a0 What could justify allowing the meat from\u00a0sick animals into our food supply?<\/p>\n

China has been getting a lot of bad press lately over its food safety issues, but, on this one, they seem to be ahead of us in banning the use of the drug and not wanting meat containing it.\u00a0 What I learned today is just one more reason to eat meat from local, pastured animals raised without growth promoting drugs.\u00a0 Sources of\u00a0pastured meat\u00a0 in Houston . . .<\/a><\/p>\n

Sources:<\/p>\n

Helena Bottemiller, Dispute over drug in feed limiting US meat exports <\/a>
\nSupreme Court overturns Califonia slaughterhouse law<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Helena Bottemiller of The Food and Environment Reporting Network says “few Americans outside of the livestock industry have ever heard of ractopamine.”\u00a0 Well,\u00a0I certainly had never heard of ractopamine\u00a0before reading her article\u00a0today.\u00a0\u00a0Apparently it’s a drug fed to pigs right up …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,63,80,17,19],"tags":[64,84,61,38,44],"class_list":["post-1826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-access-to-good-food","category-food-safety","category-health","category-local-farming","category-real-food","tag-food-safety-2","tag-health-2","tag-healthy-foods","tag-local-food","tag-pastured-pork"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p70SEj-ts","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1826"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5822,"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1826\/revisions\/5822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}