Barry Estabrook, author of the New York Times bestseller Tomatoland
and a writer of "great skill and compassion" (Eric Schlosser), now
explores the dark side of the American pork industry. Drawing on his
personal experiences raising pigs as well as his sharp investigative
instincts, Estabrook covers the range of the human-porcine experience.
He embarks on nocturnal feral pig hunts in Texas. He visits farmers who
raise animals in vast confinement barns for Smithfield and Tyson, two of
the country's biggest pork producers. And he describes the threat of
infectious disease and the possible contamination of our food supply.
Through these stories shines Estabrook's abiding love for these
remarkable creatures. Pigs are social, self-aware, and playful, not to
mention smart enough to master the typical house dog commands of "sit,
stay, come" twice as fast as your average pooch. With the cognitive
abilities of at least three-year-olds, they can even learn to operate a
modified computer. Unfortunately for the pigs, they're also delicious to
eat.
Estabrook shows how these creatures are all too often subjected to lives
of suffering in confinement and squalor, sustained on a drug-laced diet
just long enough to reach slaughter weight, then killed on mechanized
disassembly lines. But it doesn't have to be this way. Pig Tales
presents a lively portrait of those farmers who are taking an
alternative approach, like one Danish producer that has a far more
eco-friendly and humane system of pork production, and new, small family
farms with free-range heritage pigs raised on antibiotic-free diets. It
is possible to raise pigs responsibly and respectfully in a way that is
good for producers, consumers, and some of the top chefs in America.
Provocative, witty, and deeply informed, Pig Tales is bound to spark
conversation at dinner tables across America.
