Most animals will take on the flavour of their regular food, (hence we don't usually eat domestic cats, they taste of cat food). By raising pigs on a diet of bacon we could create a very tasty bacon.-- dare99, Jul 13 2002 I have been wondering where on earth brains had gone http://www.fab1.co....aracters/brains.htmsomeone's gran ate him [po, Jul 14 2002, last modified Oct 21 2004] In my experience, pigs fed on leftovers from hotel kitchens are quite tasty enough, thank you very much. They seem to have a particular fondness for trifle. In fact, Custard Fed Pigs is a much more appealing prospect.-- salachair, Jul 13 2002 Baked. Animals are already being fed with the ground - up remnants of other animals. It is one of the sicker points of animal mass-production.-- Saruman, Jul 13 2002 Pigs are pretty much omniverous anyway so probably don't mind a bit of pork. The stuff that gets ground up for animal feed is the bits we really don't want to eat. This idea is to feed them the more premium meats to effect the flavour.-- dare99, Jul 13 2002 The solution for all world problems in one word: . . . .. .. .... ....."cannibalism".. .. . ... . . . .-- postseti, Jul 13 2002 How do you know that pigs fed on pork taste better? It could taste worse, and is likely to cause diseases such as B.S.E., and other cannibal related diseases.-- [ sctld ], Jul 13 2002 The tastiest pigs are first kept as pampered pets.-- reensure, Jul 13 2002 [sctld ], it'd have to be P.S.C. for pigs, Pocine spongiform encephalopathy (sp?). As far as a I know, pigs are free from neurological disease at the mo. This was caused in cattle by the consumption of brain matter by the cows. I'm talking about feeding them the premium cuts, perhaps smoked to flavour the meat. No body eats brains any more (exept the gran of a friend of mine who will quite happily tuck into boiled pigs brain with a little vinegar)-- dare99, Jul 14 2002 There was a tribe, a certain tribe, in the south pacific who practice cannibalism. They eat only the choicest cuts of human flesh, and many of them suffer from C.J.D. type diseases. Indulging in cannibalism, no matter what animl it is, will always end in tears...-- [ sctld ], Jul 14 2002 Actually I think you'll find they were eating the brain tissue in a ritualistic manner. On the whole cannibalism is bad 'cause people carry diseases that people can catch. On the other hand, if you ensure that there are no diseases in the equation to start with you should be ok. Also, don't go for multi-generational cannibalism which is where the problems arise.-- dare99, Jul 14 2002 You're still not convincing me, it just doesn't seem... cosher (drum roll, symbol clash). Lets agree to disagree.-- [ sctld ], Jul 14 2002 Cool-- dare99, Jul 14 2002 To the best of my knowledge, the C.J.D.-style diseases come from ingesting prions, usually through the consumption of brain matter, as dare99 says. As I recall, these are screwed-up proteins which lock onto other proteins in your brain and turn them into prions, and so on. At the moment, there's no known way to turn affected proteins back to what they should be. As far as I know, the tribes which suffer these diseases do tend to be the ones that ritualistically eat the brains of their defeated enemies or respected dead in order to "absorb their power". So, assuming you feed the pig only choice cuts this should not be a problem.
However, the real problem with this idea is the inefficiency. As you go up the food chain, the energy returned gets less and less. Pig fed on grain requires x amount of grain. Pig fed on pigs requires y amount of pigs. So what are those pigs fed on? Pigs or grain? Grain? Pig fed on pigs (fed on grain) requires X times y amount of grain. Pig? Then you just get even more expense, since the pigs you feed the pigs you feed the pigs have to be fed on something.
How about fishbones?-- Guy Fox, Jul 14 2002 Nah, they'd get a nasty fishy taste, fishbones should be reserved for cats and the queen mum. Farmers are currently complaining in this country (UK) that the price of pork is so low as to be unprofitable. By creating a new market with a premium product they could get around this whilst also finding another use for unprofitable swine. (feel like I'm paddling against the flow of public opinion with this idea!)-- dare99, Jul 14 2002 //...the price of pork is so low as to be unprofitable. By creating a new market with a premium product they could get around this...//
Or they could just say the pork is premium and raise the price. Never underestimate the gullibility of the consumer.-- calum, Jul 14 2002 Everywhere there's lots of piggies, living piggy lives You can see them out for dinner, with their piggy wives Clutching forks and knives To eat their bacon.
(RIP George Harrison.)-- waugsqueke, Jul 15 2002 This is what started mad cow disease. The prions did come from the animals' brains, but brain matter still got into the other parts of the cow due to meat processing and the brain bolts they kill cows with, and not because they were actually feeding cows' brains to each other. That's what I heard anyway. Still, a dangerous practice. Fish bone for you.-- Skullhead, Oct 30 2002 Skullhead, The cannibalism idea is only one hypothesis of the spread of BSC, another is spontaneous mutation of brain protein caused by herbicides in the soil.
It seems likely that feeding meat to cattle is not a good idea, they are herbivores. Piggies on the other hand are omnivores and will quite happily tuck into one of their sty mates if they are dead and nicely chopped (or just left on a hot day to soften up).
Any we’re not talking animal welfare here, were talking flavour!!-- dare99, Oct 30 2002 They do this with cows.
If you feed pork to pigs so they taste more like pork, what did the original pig taste like?-- DesertFox, May 10 2004 This is a bad idea... refer to a book called, "Deadly Feasts".-- zigness, May 10 2004 The pork smell (stink) will be too strong. As it is, many supertasters I know of dislike pork.-- Aerythes, May 12 2004 When I was a child, my family used to keep hens for eggs. The hens were fed kitchen scraps, which would occasionally include (well cooked) chicken leftovers. I remember feeling a mixture of horror and mirth when this first occurred to me, but I can't say the eggs tasted any better.-- goldilox, Mar 31 2005 We tried a similar project in Britain and ended up with Mad Cow Disease!!!-- Muzzanator, Mar 31 2005 Gardeners tend to add composted vegetable-trimmings to the soil, I think, and I don't find any year-on-year improvement in the broccoliness of my broccoli, nor in the celerity of my celery.
Thinking about it, if this sort of practice was causing mad broccoli disease, how would we ever tell.....-- Basepair, Mar 31 2005 Soooo....you're going to feed pigs the more premium cuts of pork in order to produce more premium cuts of pork to then, what, feed to the pigs again? This could be a worse idea, but it'd have to include nuclear waste.-- Noexit, Mar 31 2005 random, halfbakery