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- #41
misfitmorgan
Herd Master
I believe the marbling game in came along in pork when berks had a surge in popularity and commercial production. Berks are known for good marbling. Other newer/fewer breeds are also touted for their marbling like the mangalista. It does seem to be a rather new phenomenon.
We used to have old style pigs some where lard pigs and some were meat pigs and some were dual but by todays commercial standards almost all of them would have failed to make the cut. To slow to grow, bad feed to meat conversion, to much lard left on the carcass, etc. So the goal was to cut the lard, to make lean pigs. In making lean pigs the meat was less marbled but no one cared because it was a lean pig which ment more healthy(marketing). Now after decades of being promoted to flavorless food people are going the other way.
We are a country that has been trained and guided to "like" what is the easier and cheapest to raise/manufacture, what is identical and to be appalled by nature and the natural state of foods. Pork is/was one of the most heavily promoted industries and will continue to be for as long as people are satisfied with commercial pork. You can find old (pre-1960) adverts and videos all over the internet touting the benefits of the "new" lean pork available. How it was so nice for house wives to have a product they could count on to always be the same, and a bunch of other junk we now think of as this is how meat is...
When it came down to choosing whether the government should promote chicken or rabbit as a "top" meat the deciding factor was that house wives found it easier to clean and prepare chicken then rabbit. Otherwise the top meats would be beef, pork and rabbit.
As far as people asking how to get a stronger flavor or not, we actually discuss that with many people, that is why people are interested in buying our pork....the stronger flavor. This is the same reason people are interested in buying slightly slower growing farm raised chicken, more flavor. It is very similar to a store bought everyday tomato and a garden tomato, most people want the garden version because.....stronger flavor.
The mild flavor of modern commercial pork is due to the bland diet (mostly corn and soy), being butchered very young, and many lean modern breeds actually have a anemic problem....that is why pork is the other white meat.
The pork industry saw the problem and they saw it was "off-putting" to house wives because the meat was not the right. So the industry lowered the price of pork so much housewives could not afford not to buy it and they started the largest ad campaigns in the National Pork Boards history which was "Pork...the other white meat". This worked because chicken was the cheapest meat at the time and it was white and it what people grew to want because they had it a lot. The average consumer associated white meat with healthy meat, even though pork is not a white meat it is actually a red meat in nutritional terms. This ad campaign helped pork sales raise by 20% nationwide.
We used to have old style pigs some where lard pigs and some were meat pigs and some were dual but by todays commercial standards almost all of them would have failed to make the cut. To slow to grow, bad feed to meat conversion, to much lard left on the carcass, etc. So the goal was to cut the lard, to make lean pigs. In making lean pigs the meat was less marbled but no one cared because it was a lean pig which ment more healthy(marketing). Now after decades of being promoted to flavorless food people are going the other way.
We are a country that has been trained and guided to "like" what is the easier and cheapest to raise/manufacture, what is identical and to be appalled by nature and the natural state of foods. Pork is/was one of the most heavily promoted industries and will continue to be for as long as people are satisfied with commercial pork. You can find old (pre-1960) adverts and videos all over the internet touting the benefits of the "new" lean pork available. How it was so nice for house wives to have a product they could count on to always be the same, and a bunch of other junk we now think of as this is how meat is...
When it came down to choosing whether the government should promote chicken or rabbit as a "top" meat the deciding factor was that house wives found it easier to clean and prepare chicken then rabbit. Otherwise the top meats would be beef, pork and rabbit.
As far as people asking how to get a stronger flavor or not, we actually discuss that with many people, that is why people are interested in buying our pork....the stronger flavor. This is the same reason people are interested in buying slightly slower growing farm raised chicken, more flavor. It is very similar to a store bought everyday tomato and a garden tomato, most people want the garden version because.....stronger flavor.
The mild flavor of modern commercial pork is due to the bland diet (mostly corn and soy), being butchered very young, and many lean modern breeds actually have a anemic problem....that is why pork is the other white meat.
The pork industry saw the problem and they saw it was "off-putting" to house wives because the meat was not the right. So the industry lowered the price of pork so much housewives could not afford not to buy it and they started the largest ad campaigns in the National Pork Boards history which was "Pork...the other white meat". This worked because chicken was the cheapest meat at the time and it was white and it what people grew to want because they had it a lot. The average consumer associated white meat with healthy meat, even though pork is not a white meat it is actually a red meat in nutritional terms. This ad campaign helped pork sales raise by 20% nationwide.
