The US Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, announced last month plans to use an additional $30 million dollars to purchase pork in 2009 for federal food and nutrition assistance programs.

This announcement comes as the USDA has already spent some $151 million of Recovery Act (widely known as the “stimulus”) money to purchase pork products.  To me there’s always a bit of irony when pork barrel money is spent to purchase actual pork, as is the case here.  You can read the USDA Press Release here.

There’s theoretically nothing wrong with using taxpayer money to support pork producers who are struggling with a glut of supply and lagging demand, as well as slower sales due to the economic conditions in the US.  But since a majority of pork producers in the US are huge CAFOs (Confined Animal Feeding Operations), essentially your tax money is being used to bail out pork producers who are having a slow year.

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The Meatrix is a clever animated short that explains how incredibly cruel, destructive and dangerous factory farming truly is. Even the recent over-hyped outbreak of swine flu has been linked to poorly managed factory farms in Mexico, that are actually owned by US Agribusiness giant Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest industrial pork producer. “Industrial farms are super-incubators for viruses,” said Bob Martin, former executive director of the Pew Commission on Industrial Animal Farm Production, and a vocal critic of “contained animal feeding operations.”

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In the State of Iowa, pigs outnumber people by 8:1 - there are 20M pigs living in this Midwestern state.  Hog odors are nauseating, sulferous, and hard to get out of clothing, vehicles, and carpeting.  Iowa Senator Tom Harkin is proud of getting this earmark passed through, and his Iowa constituents view as his bringing home the bacon to his home state.  Per Sen. Harkin (as quoted by mgwashington.com):

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Looking at the overall package - most of it (34%) is much-needed tax relief which should help stimulate the economy.   But $308B of this bill is so called “discretionary spending”, which is where pork usually hides.   $48B of this $308B goes to the Department of Transportation for overall infrastructure improvement - another necessity that was brought blatantly to the public eye by the bridge collapse in Minneapolis last year.   This leaves $260B earmarked for what some consider necessary, but others consider pork.  Some of the most heavily contested portions of this bill are:

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Hmmm–pork (barrel spending) by definition, is spending for projects that will benefit a certain group of constituents.

This article in Grist highlights all who will benefit from the “green pork” in the package.

Regarding increased fuel efficiency Obama shares:

This is what they call pork. You know the truth. It will not only save the government significant money over time, it will not only create manufacturing jobs for folks who are making these cars, it will set a standard for private industry to match. And so when you hear these attacks deriding something of such obvious importance as this, you have to ask yourself — are these folks serious? Is it any wonder that we haven’t had a real energy policy in this country?

Regarding clean energy:

After decades of dragging our feet, this plan will finally spark the creation of a clean energy industry that will create hundreds of thousands of jobs over the next few years, manufacturing wind turbines and solar cells, for example — millions more after that. These jobs and these investments will double our capacity to generate renewable energy over the next few years.

And regarding energy efficiency:

This will save consumers money, this will spur innovation, and this will conserve tremendous amounts of energy. We’ll save through these simple steps over the next 30 years the amount of energy produced over a two-year period by all the coal-fired power plants in America.

Americans with lungs, and a heating bill sure does cover a large group of constituents. Sorry folks, but spending that will do wonders to clean up the earth and positively affect all earthlings is not “pork”.

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It’s lunchtime, baby. Panda Garden. Porky goodness. Mooshu style.

The “other white meat” in your takeout container falls behind beef and chicken in American consumption, but we do pig out on pig—on average, each of us consumes 51 pounds of Wilbur annually. That translates to big impact on our water and air.

Due to the high variety of bacteria, worms and other undesirables in pig flesh, and because of the quick-spread disease potential of crowded pig farms, heavy doses of antibiotics are administered routinely. Those same drugs end up in your body via waste streaming into our water supply, and via that Mooshu pork to go. Other side dishes you might not have ordered include growth hormones to encourage meat-heavy livestock and vaccines injected to avoid profit-damaging disease.

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Just in time for the holiday, the Honey Board has a few recipes to recommend — for the grill. Honey is a pretty common ingredient for marinades and sauces. These recipes capture that sweet-spicy combination of flavors I personally love.

Before you go for the tongs, the Honey Board has a few pointers on why this food is sustainable AND an eco-friendly choice:

• Honey is an all-natural food that leaves a small eco-footprint.
• Purchasing local honey encourages growth of the local economy and reduces production waste.
• Many farmers have hives on their land, in part because bees are responsible for one out of every three bites we consume.
• If it weren’t for honey bees, we would suffer from a limited supply of oranges, apples, blueberries, cucumbers and strawberries.

Recipes for your holiday cook out include Grilled Tofu Kabobs with a Honey-Chipotle Glaze.

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