Bacon For Cheap or Expensive

I love food and I love learning where food comes from and how its prepared, but sometimes you run into situations where you just don't know if production situation meet your moral guidelines food.  This brings up a recent topic in media gestation crates where pigs are raised in individual crates allowing them to lay around but not move around.  The reason this is done is that these animals are very aggressive and competitive for food making it hard for younger smaller ones to grow up in to healthy fatty piggies that we all love and can eat.  

Now the controversy is that some people feel this isn't right and when they see these pigs squirming in their cells they get up set and say what the hell I'd never want to live like that, and i agree its a hard thing to say.  On the other hand you have the Veterinary Medical Association says well actually it may be hard to look at but it works fairly well, the pig grow up big and chubby, while there behavior is much better, and there white blood cells do well.  So if the pigs health are good, is there a problem.  

Well i guess others believe there still is.  So to fix this problem you would need well trained staff, much more land, more attention to pigs, and make sure there properly fed.  This in return means a much higher price in the cost of pork production.  Because some people don't like the pictures they see I now have to pay a whole lot more for my bacon.  

This is one of those situation where i toss and turn around in my mind.  Though I think one solution and the best is one uncommonly thought.  Why not turn to local small production pig farmers.  What if you could drive on over to the farm, or a farm market, and farmer Ben has a cuts of pork ready for you, or he could cut some up right there.  I imagine that would lower transportation costs, selling costs, and you would end up with a much better happy pig.  This food culture needs to stop thinking on a massive scale and look more into small scale productions. The return of the Small Farmer.

Then I want to provide you with one final thought, I hear wild boar bacon is the best bacon you'll ever have.