Another article that confirms that most people's so-called "appreciation" of farm animals goes no further than their stomachs. Have you ever interacted with a pig in any way other than to chew and swallow their flesh? Try it sometime. Pigs are wonderful and magical, as you might find if you spent five minutes with one. Wouldn't interacting with the living creature make for "a more meaningful connection to the food we eat," or is this just a trendy, utterly insincere catchphrase that meat-eaters like to use to soothe themselves into a serene, guiltless vision of delicious, expensive, "ethical" meats, going so far as to use words like "peaceful" and "reverent" to describe the slaughtering of the pigs. Wow, who are you fooling? Thousands of people who'd rather buy into a bunch of feel-good mumbo jumbo than even explore vegetarianism, sure, but not the pigs.

If you want to cover Real pig-appreciation, take a look at Farm Sanctuary's recent rescue of pigs from the midwestern floods. http://www.farmsanctuary.org/mediacenter/2008/pr_pig_rescue_end08.html

"Harvesting an animal is not a pretty thing. But it's a necessary thing"

Thats debatable.

Woof, woof! Yum, yum!

Does anyone else find it ironic that just days after featuring a book lampooning the self-congratulatory habits of left-leaning upper-middle-class white people, Salon launched a whole week dedicated to assuring left-leaning upper-middle-class white people that they are somehow doing a good thing by paying more for their dead pig flesh?

Sorry, kids. There is no such thing as "ethical" or "humane" meat. Some farms may be less inhumane than others, but in the end, we don't need meat to live, so how can it be considered ethical in any way to choose to violently take the life of another conscious being simply because you want to eat her body? It's really just that simple -- just because you want to do something doesn't make it morally justifiable, even if it's legal.

I hope that the National Pork Council (or whomever was underwriting this whole godforsaken enterprise) got their money's worth. As for me, if it weren't for Glenn Greenwald, I'm not sure I would still even be visiting Salon at all anymore.

P.S. -- If you don't want to hear this kind of thing, then don't provoke it by running a whole week of unbalanced "Hey, it's great to kill pigs!" stories. It's unreasonable to expect that compassionate people are going to just shut up and ignore that anymore.

I usually eat vegetarian, but get rundown without any meat in my diet now that I am in my 50's. So I get a ham slice from the best source I can and it lasts for a week, adding just enough flavor and protein to keep me going. And, a tomato sandwich is barren without a slice or two of bacon!

I just went on a farm tour last month (WNC) and there were several farms with free-range pigs, happily nesting under big weedy shrubs with a passel of piglets. Maybe meat is too expensive to eat every day, and unhealthy in excess, but there are more and more family farms offering ethically-raised animals for those who appreciate them.

I get it. vegetarian Times takes a point of view. And the point of view taken for Pork Week is that pork is good food.

Sweet Jesus.

And Salon, despite taking the "pork is good food" tack has published your rants over and over again. The authors of the original articles provoking said rants have all contained numerous references to being as humane as possible while still filling our tummies with delicious pork. Lots and lots of people have spent their employer's precious time (me included) responding back and forth but the one thing that is clear is that the meat-eaters are actually listenig to what you say. You could giv a fuck what I have to say unless it agrees with you.

And you bitch about evenhandedness and points of view and represntation.

Just admit it, you don't want "balance." You want submission to your argument. You want renunciation of a carnivorous diet. You want admission that one can't be decent and also eat animals.

I find it telling that your references to my previous posts you comment snarkily about stuff like "meme" and make semi-humorous references to Porkatarian Times, but you don't ever discuss, let alone ADMIT, that my point of view is as reasoned as yours. Not that you agree with it, not that you condone it or accept it, only that you can admit that I've thought it through. You can't do it can you? In your mind, my reasoning is flawed, I am inhumane or I just don't understand what you are saying. I simply CANNOT have thought through the issue.

You are just like the anti-choice right wing nutjobs I referenced earlier. Maybe if you and I toured an "abortion mill" together and saw the pictures of what those doctors, no wait, ABOTIONISTS, do to those unborn children, we'd finally come to grips with it. Because, well, god, how could we not be anti-choice if we just really UNDERSTOOD what abortionists do?

That’s how much I pay for my small farm, heritage breed local pork. But it’s seriously the best bacon ever. Forget that too thin, too fatty stuff that tastes like fake smoke. I’d way rather have two slices of perfect bacon then twice as much of the grocery store stuff. And since the drippings aren’t crazy salty and smoky I always save it to use in other dishes.

A couple of weeks ago I paid $30 for two thick cut pork chops. No kidding it’s expensive but they were great. It made all other pork seem like cardboard slabs. My pork vendor also sells chickens and rabbits – those are less expensive and really nice. The chicken is so much nicer then the stuff available at my grocer store (even their ‘natural’ selection) I really can’t see myself going back. Factory farm meat is really out of the question when you’ve tasted what it’s supposed to be like. And I don’t even have the most refined pallet – it’s just that dramatic.

As far as the pigs death is concerned? I have to confess it doesn’t bother me in the least. I’m cool killing animals for food so long as they’re raised in a decent way. I was a PETA member – I’ve seen all the films, read all the literature and gone to all the protests. No one here can tell me anything I haven’t heard and seen over and over. I eat lots of tofu and my TVP chili is fantastic but I have zero interest in converting to a full vegetarian diet. To hear people rail against this brand of decency and moderation seems crazed. Don’t forget – these wonderful, magical animals would never have been breed in the first place and would soon go extinct if it wasn’t for people like me looking to eat them.