You Are the Meat You Eat This Christmas

GOING WHOLE HOG

12 December 2013

You are the meat you eat this Christmas

By Charmaine Koppehel

Christmas holly, bells and good cheer are just around the corner and as we fill our trolleys with delicious ingredients for the much anticipated festive feast it is well worth considering tastier, healthier and more ethical options when buying your gammon or ham.

Very few consumers know that pigs in South Africa are, for the most part, the worst treated of all commercially farmed animals. Renowned as highly intelligent and emotional beings, industrially farmed pigs are denied any quality of life as they languish in indoor cages, never seeing the sun, the soil or a blade of grass. A unique campaign called Going Whole Hog is driving change and advocating genuinely free-range and pasture-reared pork products as consumers demand to be given the choice to opt for more ethically produced food.

Awareness is growing and ethical pork is rapidly gaining popularity at the supermarket as the health conscious realise that pasture-reared meat has a better fat balance and higher vitamin density, without the negative effects of growth hormones and antibiotics so prolific in factory farmed meat. Not only that, happy pigs produce meat of a superior flavour – which is just what you want for your Christmas table. Afterwards, when your stomach is full and satisfied, you can also feel better knowing that your purchase supports a more ethical way of farming animals.

Humane Society International, Program Manager for Africa, Tozie Zokufa, calls on South Africans to consider eating free-range and pasture-reared meat and eggs this holiday. “Christmas is a time of goodwill, so let’s be more humane this summer for the betterment of the animals, our health and our environment,” he says.

Ethical pork may cost a bit more but it is not injected with brine and therefore doesn’t diminish in weight while cooking unlike factory farmed pork, and there is an argument for paying better prices for authentically “old school” farmed food, eating less of it and valuing it more.

Tis the season to eat locally sourced, humanely raised, healthier meat. For a list of ethical pork suppliers have a look at http://www.nutritionist.co.za/pasture-reared-pork-outlets. Get to know your meat and its source and your body, as well as everyone around the Christmas table, will thank you.

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For further information please contact:

Mark Fox

Campaign Advisor

Going Whole Hog

021 553 3893 / 074 299 8999

www.activist.co.za or www.nutritionist.co.za/research-projects