Every single week I get emails and phone calls asking me why it is that I do what it is that I do? Why would any human being take the time and effort to continually seek out and search for the little, tiny, small production, “Ma & Pa Kettle” family farms that produce such relatively small, specialty batches of artisan bacon compared to the well known and established, large corporate company slaughter houses that can supply the needs of all of my members and customers in about 24 short hours of mass produced efficiency?
I must confess right here and now that I’m only human, and have been some very rare occasion, during the very busiest parts of my highly frenetic schedule, that the very question itself seems so “disconnected” that I sometimes feel inclined to just throw my hands up in the air and simply not respond at all. But of course, I always eventually re-gather my true compassion and composure and remember that these sorts of questions are exactly why I am here, to help people understand and learn to better appreciate the vast difference, importance and precise value of truly superior, premium quality gourmet bacon.
So what, specifically are the advantages to small production, family farm, artisan crafted gourmet bacon. Well first off, let us not forget rule number one when it comes to raising pigs. That rule clearly states: “A Happy Pig is a delicious, succulent, tender and healthy pig!
Therefore, the clear and obvious advantages of being raised outside, running free and playing with one’s fellow porkers out in the clean, fresh air, green grass and natural, mineral potent mud, under a relaxed and happy day of vitamin A rich sunlight, eating fresh table scraps from last nights family dinner along with a home made recipe of mash and grains simply blows way the life experiences of corporate mass produced pork.
Instead of the positive scenario just described for the pigs growing up out on the family farm, the mass produced company swine live inside a giant, gray walled institution with unhealthy and nerve agitating artificial, florescent lighting, when there are lights at all. They are crammed like sardines in small, over-crowded, pens, often without even enough room to turn around, let alone walk, run or play.
Because they are all crammed into a small, filthy space, standing sedentary in their own waste as well as the waste of their fellow prison inmates, with no room for exercise, they have to be feed all sorts of unnatural, made growth hormones, steroids and antibiotics to increase any potential muscle tone, fatten them up for slaughter and keep them relatively healthy, at least according to government inspector terms, trapped and unable to move right next to other pigs who are sick, dying or have already been dead for a day or two and haven’t yet been discovered y the corporate caretakers.
This of course means growing up with the constant sound and smell of death and dying in the air, day and night, growing up in their dark and dingy, dungeon-like death factory, building up a body full of toxic adrenalin and fear, constantly reminded, 24 hours a day of that final, inevitable appointment in the chamber of rotating knives.
Now out of complete fairness and total honestly for all concerned, I must admit that there are a couple of benefits that go into the positive column for the corporate, mass produced bacon. With the assembly line efficiency that comes from growing a pig from infancy to maturity in an overly crowded, cluttered, factory environment, the costs of raising the pig are lower than what is invested into raising a pig on the family farm, so the price of “Big Business Bacon” is cheaper.
Also the modern day, corporate assembly line processing and additional drugs, hormones and injections means there is a lot more of the cheap bacon around to be found, so one doesn’t have to look any further than the local, neighborhood supermarket to find a vast number of low cost, “B, C and D Grade” bacon to be consumed.
So which bacon is better? I think we all know what my vote is. As for what you think, only you can decide that for yourself and your family. If you have any questions while making your decision, please feel free to contact me at the www.BaconFreak.com website. Just go to the contact page and ask your question or make your comment and I’ll be happy to get back to you with a reply as fast as humanly possible.
I look forward to your message,
Rocco Loosbrock runs a food and wine company in Los Angeles, California. Visit http://www.cvwine.com to learn more.
