Um, actually it's not all what you might imagine.

Post #428,226 by mmoffitt 4/3/19 12:33:01 PM 4/3/19 12:33:01 PM Reply	Um, actually it's not all what you might imagine. Ractopamine Ractopamine is a safe and effective U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved feed supplement that has been used by hog and beef producers for many years to produce leaner meat more efficiently. The supplement, which is widely used in the United States, can be part of a healthy, balanced diet for growing hogs. However, a number of nations ban the use of ractopamine. China, Russia, and the European Union (EU) countries, for example, require third-party verification that pigs are not fed ractopamine. To meet this demand, we have leveraged our vertically integrated platform to produce pigs without using this supplement. We have removed ractopamine from feed for all company-owned animals supplied to our processing facilities. Several Smithfield plants now produce meat from pigs that have never received ractopamine. https://www.smithfieldfoods.com/integrated-report/2015/animal-care/ractopamine Smithfield stopped using ractopamine after China bought them. If you want to buy pork in the US that hasn't had it - good luck. This is not to take issue with your conclusions on this at all. Personally, I gave up eating meat about a month ago after reading an LA Times article. bcnu, Mikem It's mourning in America again.
Post #428,228 by rcareaga 4/3/19 2:09:54 PM 4/3/19 2:09:54 PM Reply	Thanks for the background I find myself growing more and more sympathetic to vegetarianism on ethical grounds, but rather like St. Augustine (“Lord, make me chaste—but not yet”), I haven’t arrived there. carnivorously,
Post #428,235 by boxley 4/3/19 7:12:25 PM 4/3/19 7:12:25 PM Reply	for right now I prefer beef from mexico and argentina if it is available Mexico still runs a lot of grass fed beef although since supply is growing feedlots are a matter of time. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=Is+Mexican+beef+grass+fed%3F&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjDxoCnhbXhAhUum-AKHQqqDc4Qzmd6BAgMEBM&biw=1636&bih=984 if you throw enuff salt on pork (bacon and other processed products) I will eat that. "Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts" – Richard Feynman
Post #428,246 by mmoffitt 4/4/19 9:00:36 AM 4/4/19 9:00:36 AM Reply	Re: ethical grounds That is precisely why I cannot bring myself to eat meat (especially pork) anymore. Comparing and contrasting our animal welfare regulations (wrt to farm/food animals) with Europe's paints a ghastly picture. I am most definitely not an evangelist for vegetarianism and among my favorite jokes is still, "Why did the vegan cross the road? To tell someone they were vegan." Yet, in my rapidly approaching old age I am increasingly aware of the amount of cruelty in the world and I no longer wish to lead my life in a manner that is complicit with any sort of cruelty. Our regulations allow for pigs to be hauled in the back of trucks for up to 28 hours without food or water. There's a group of activists in California who flag down the drivers hauling the pigs across the street from a "processing plant" (nay slaughter house). They do this with the company's approval that has agreed to allow the trucks to pause for two minutes so that activists can walk up to the pigs, speak kindly to them and give them some water, which they guzzle down ferociously. The activists say they do this twice a week because these pigs are just six months old and they have never known any kindness in their entire lives and are about to be slaughtered. What has stuck with me most is one of the activists saying (paraphrased), "These pigs are just six months old and they are very frightened." Frightened. A very short life filled beyond capacity with cruelty, then parched in the back of a truck only to be slaughtered whilst consumed with fear. And make no mistake, pigs are intelligent enough to know true fear. I simply cannot get that idea out of my head. Terrified young animals jacked up with beta agonists whose entire lives have been filled with cruelty. As much as I very recently loved bacon and ham, I find myself unwilling to continue to turn a willful blind eye to the fear I am helping to instill and the cruelty I am helping to promote through my food choices. I feel this way and say all this but I do not now, nor would I ever criticize anyone for eating three pounds of bacon and two pounds of ham with each meal. This is my own conviction and it is an entirely personal one. bcnu, Mikem It's mourning in America again.
Post #428,248 by boxley 4/4/19 10:35:26 AM 4/4/19 10:35:26 AM Reply	Re: ethical grounds little piggies sound like some 3rd world children "Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts" – Richard Feynman
Post #428,263 by Ashton 4/4/19 3:25:34 PM 4/4/19 3:25:34 PM Reply	Thou sayest.. It IS just like that and no rationalizing can make these Facts disappear. (And there are lots of veggies for quite more variety than most of us ken ..I'm finding). (Let's not even think about the CHICKENS), their beak-tips sliced-off ... by the most mizzuble-worker-slaves/almost 100% no-Green-Card refugees, themselves ... the ONLY Class who will put up with their also dangerous, filthy enviro on the slaughterhouse floor: because they have no choice and the overseers don't give any more of a rats-ass for these slaves as they do about (any other living thing, as seems to follow). There's some clinical evidence that little cheeldrun who like to torture animals correlate well with later-on ~~Repo-mindset?~~ ..Bizness 'careers' akin to the habits of the Orange misanthrope and all who ride-in-her. Food-for-thought, there, I wot. We are amidst gaggles of Despicables ... it's no wonder that drug-escapes are a popular exit from .. now just another shit-hole country amidst the anonymous others. I don't 'miss-the-meat' either; just have to become less iggerant of the manifold other options: Early-on, with a friend who had joined The Mothers/Zappa et al: we dined at a veggie place in L.A. called Help! First experience of just what a Good-chef could do with A PLANT or ten. (I draw the line at Okra, though.. and can't eschew the seafood ..yet, figuring their sentience to be a cut-below that of near-sentient mammals all around us). exceptions the Cetaceans, various others: Sentience is all around us ..if we just See what ..usually we just give a desultory glance, en passant. {sigh} PS: Whaling! is the last-refuge of scoundrels/individual or their voracious Countries--as with the fans of Ivory baubles ..too long a list to stomach. To any Gaiea-equivalent Out There: [??] Lay On! Macduff! No galaxy NEEDS a planet-full of sleep-walkers in their midst (Dark Star had a solution: the destruction of "unstable planets". I hadn't thought that the plot was pure-Prescience/just wasn't that smart :-/ (Now that I understand: I CAN die Happy :-) within a Cosmos so ept.. eh? 40
Post #428,273 by Andrew Grygus 4/4/19 6:40:50 PM 4/4/19 6:40:50 PM Reply	What? No Okra? I serve okra often, in stews and the like, and it is always well received. Of course, like Brussels Sprouts, you have to cook it right. I pick the smallest, youngest Okras from the bins. I shave the cap end as a cone, being careful there are no holes into the interior. I then tumble the pods with Vinegar, enough to coat well, and let them soak for 20 minutes or so, tumbling them a couple of times. Then rinse well, and add to the stew near the end of cooking. Actually, Okra done this way is durable enough to stand reheating the recipe. There are other ways to cook Okra which are also good.
Post #428,274 by Ashton 4/4/19 7:00:21 PM 4/4/19 7:00:21 PM Reply	Thanks; unfortunately I've never tried it ..cooked Properly. But there's this re pork: WaPo on latest deregulations of the Hog Industry. (Alas, to steal a line from Roman Holiday, "I shall always cherish: ..." the fond memory of hog-meat.) {sigh}
Post #428,281 by mmoffitt 4/5/19 8:10:09 AM 4/5/19 8:10:09 AM Reply	There's enough residue of Southern in me to enjoy fried okra. bcnu, Mikem It's mourning in America again.

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