Piggy nutrition

It’s beem a tough couple of weeks for the pig. For a couple of years now, the pig has been the darling of gourmands and the talk of chefdom. Pig cheeks, fatback, lardo, trotters, Berkshire black pigs, head cheese — a veritable litany of culinary piggy obsessions.

Now we’re in the midst of hysteria about swine flu, and no matter how many authorities (CDC, medical writers, etc) say that eating pork does not give you swine flu, the questions keep coming. Then, a National Institutes of Health-AARP  decade-long study came out this week, saying that overconsumption of red meat can hurt your health and shorten your life span. (Yes, I know the National Pork Board calls pork “the other white meat” but the USDA and nutritionists count it as red because of its fat and cholesterol content.)

Still, we can learn from the pig. As Jane Brody of the New York Times points out, the study is not saying don’t eat any red meat. Just cut back to a hot dog every once in a while or a burger a week. Vary your diet, eat more fish, fruit and vegetables, throw in some lentils and beans plus some whole grains. As any farmer knows, pigs eat anything and everything. No mono diet for them. So though we wouldn’t want to shovel in the feed like they do, porcine variety could be a good thing. In other words, maybe we should eat like a pig.