I didn’t even get a chance to put my briefcase down at my desk.
My researcher K.D. just about ran into my office.
“Dr. Sears, do I have a story for you!”
K.D. doesn’t ever get excited, so I was kind of curious. “What happened?”
“Well, I went to Maine for my vacation this summer because my family lives up there. My cousin lives near Acadia National Park. Just down the road there’s a family that has an organic farm.
“Every year, they have a big party. Like a farm-to-table kind of thing. They raise money for charity and have a big tent for the dinner. My cousin’s never been able to go because she’s never had anyone to go with. So I drove over and we went to the party.
“Before the dinner they have a tour, and show you where all the crops come from, and all that. They raise cows there, too. Some are for milking and some are for … you know … eating.
“Before the tour they ask you if you want chicken of beef for dinner. I would usually have the chicken. But I thought, what the heck, I’ll try the beef …”
Should You Eat the "Other White Meat"?
You may have seen pork marketed as “the other white meat.” Many cuts of modern pork are indeed quite white and getting lighter all the time. Yet the cuts of pork from the farms around where I grew up varied from pink to reddish brown.
Today’s pork is also a lot drier and less flavorful than my grandfather’s pork. The pigs are a lot different, too. Gone are the fat-laden huge hogs that weighed two thousand pounds. These days, the industry equates leaner with better. But with all this dramatic change, do we really know how healthy these new products are?