We love pork, each of us eating nearly 40kg of it a year, but we rarely seem bothered about the way pigs are farmed. Michael Kellydecided to get to know two of them
There's an episode of The Simpsonsin which Lisa tells her father that she is becoming a vegetarian and will never eat meat again. Aghast, Homer asks: "What about bacon?" "No." "Ham?" "No." "Pork chops?" "Dad! Those all come from the same animal." "Ooh, yeah, right, Lisa. A wonderful, magical animal."
In Ireland we consume more pork than any other type of meat and it accounts for 41 per cent of our total national meat intake, according to the Central Statistics Office. On average, we devour 40kg - or 881lbs - of pork each per annum. Ham, pork chops, roast pork, pork steak, salami, pepperoni and of course the jumbo breakfast roll, with sausages, bacon and pudding. Yum Yum. A wonderful, magical animal indeed.
Recent years have seen massive improvements in the supply of free range and organic meat, but oddly, not pork. Think about it. When's the last time you saw free range or organic pork in your supermarket? The answer most probably is that you haven't. To understand this anomaly we firstly need to understand how the industry is set up. At a time when our annual output of pigs has soared to more than three million slaughtered animals (3.16 million in 2005, according to Bord Bia), the number of pig farmers has fallen dramatically - from over 60,000 in 1970 to less than 500 today. Some 3 million pigs from a few hundred farmers? That's one hell of a herd at each farm.
As well as fewer, bigger farms, we have fewer, bigger abattoirs killing the animals. Small local slaughterhouses have been all but eliminated by government policy, EU directives and economic realities. When the Government announced a €50 million grant scheme for large processors recently, the Associated Craft Butchers of Ireland called it an "attack on small and local processors". With small farmers and local abattoirs squeezed out, we are left with industrial-scale pork production: bad news for the poor pig.
Almost all commercial pigs are kept indoors in cramped conditions. An intensively reared pig will never eat a blade of grass or a vegetable or feel the sun on its back. Because they can't go outside they never get to indulge in their favourite pastime: rooting.
About half of breeding sows are kept in stalls so narrow they can't even turn around. These unfortunate creatures produce six or seven litters and are then slaughtered. They are probably better off. Their offspring fare no better. Their short lives are all about fattening up quickly.
It's not right to treat animals this way, but most of us don't warm to animal-welfare issues when pigs are involved. Unfortunately, pigs have something that makes their misery even more complete: intelligence. Pigs have lots of it - at least as much as your dog. We get all misty-eyed at the mention of someone harming a dog, and we buy our dogs treats for Christmas. The pig ends up as the Christmas ham.
If animal welfare doesn't bother you, then think about food quality. These days pork is an insipid, average affair. When you grill a rasher you can see the grill tray through the rasher, and that's a bad sign. It looks meaty enough in the packet but shrivels to nothing when you cook it. And it seems to be covered in a white froth. What's that about?
Thankfully, free-range pork producers are popping up at farmers' markets, and they deserve support. The only other way to be certain of a decent rasher is to rear your own.
The decision to get into porcine husbandry is not to be taken lightly. Growing vegetables or keeping a few hens is easy, but keeping pigs is a whole new ball game. You are unlikely to be alarmed if a hen runs at you; you are likely to be very alarmed indeed if a fully grown pig runs at you. Pigs are livestock. Keeping pigs is, dare I say it, farming.
We got two piglets a few months ago, and it has been a revelation. When you get to know an animal - its habits, personality and temperament - it's very hard to ignore the plight of its intensively reared cousins. Our pigs are a breed called Tamworth, an old, unusual, rust-coloured breed known for its gregariousness and long snout, which it uses for vigorous rooting.
Pigs don't need as much space as you would think. We keep them at the end of our garden where we used to have the compost bin and throw the grass cuttings. It was a no-go area, overgrown with ivy and weeds. I bought a small, €90 battery-powered electric-fence charger and some fencing posts and cordoned off a pen about 20m long and a bit less than 10m wide. It's not piggy heaven, but they seem happy enough. They enjoy running around two trees in the middle of the plot. All that exercise will probably mean it will take longer to fatten them, but maybe that's no bad thing. The trees also provide them with shade, which is important for pigs, as they burn easily.
You can buy specially designed "pig arks" for them to sleep in, but pigs are not very fussy as long as they have somewhere warm and dry. My neighbour got me an old plastic oil tank that we cleaned and then cut one end out of for a door. It has worked a treat. When they come towards you they cock their heads up, quite endearingly, just like Babe. They are quiet enough for the most part. They'll squeal if they are hungry or if they see you coming with the bucket, and they are fairly noisy eaters, slurping greedily in the trough. We feed them a mixture of rolled barley and organic pig feed.
Pigs root and eat soil because it gives them vitamins and minerals. They also eat insects, grubs and worms that they find while rooting. They root all day long. I can't imagine what Ireland's three million other pigs do with their time. We had to revisit the electric-fencing arrangements because the animals escaped once too often. A pair of pigs can seriously damage your lawn or vegetable plot, so secure fencing is vital. We got some sheep wire as a second line of defence.
There's one myth I can dispel. They are not particularly dirty, and there's no discernible smell. They keep their house completely clean and tend to reserve an area at the other end of the patch as their toilet. I go in every other day and clear it, because it's dynamite for compost.
The job of naming them fell to our nieces and nephews, who came up with Charlotte and Wilbur. I still think we should have called them Rasher and Sausage, to keep us focused.