02-13-2008, 04:59 AM
I'm vegan, so, according to Hotzcatz, you should probably be suspicious of what I have to say. (Really, HotCatz, that's like saying you should be suspicious of what a person who eats meat says about eating vegetables, it kind of borders on racism, don't you think?) But I'm not posting to defend veganism or offend those who are not vegan.
I am of Okinawan ancestry. If you've read Michener's "Hawaii", or know a little bit about the history of Asian immigrants in Hawai'i, you might have picked up on the bit where Okinawans (Pacific islanders of mixed ethnicity: Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese...) were considered of lower class by the naichi, the main island Japanese, because they raised pigs, which was considered a filthy way to make a living. I understand that this proved to be financially beneficial to the Okinawan pig farmers right after WWII started because they provided a local source of pork that was not affected by limitations on ocean shipping. I have relatives who still farm pigs in Waianae, O'ahu. I don't know much about their production, if they're struggling or doing well. When I was little, I knew that they slaughtered their animals at their farm. I don't know how that plays out these days, but there are local pig farms.
Okay, I can't resist stepping onto the soapbox. I think that pigs raised on an actual "family farm" may actually have a chance to be treated better than those from a factory farm. But don't fool yourself about what a farm is in this day and age. Puna probably has real family farms, where "free range chickens" actually means that the chickens do get to walk around freely and aren't crowded into pens with their beaks (and, often, tongues) cut off. But most all of the high production poultry and meat farms are watching the bottom line and don't really have the animal's welfare, or your, the consumer's, health, at heart. If the typical farm-meat animal is allowed to live out its life instead of being slaughtered, after having been pumped with growth hormones, antibiotics, and fed the remains of other animals, they develop tumors, have health problems and die very young.
James W., you've been in this business, can you contest or confirm any of this?
I am of Okinawan ancestry. If you've read Michener's "Hawaii", or know a little bit about the history of Asian immigrants in Hawai'i, you might have picked up on the bit where Okinawans (Pacific islanders of mixed ethnicity: Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese...) were considered of lower class by the naichi, the main island Japanese, because they raised pigs, which was considered a filthy way to make a living. I understand that this proved to be financially beneficial to the Okinawan pig farmers right after WWII started because they provided a local source of pork that was not affected by limitations on ocean shipping. I have relatives who still farm pigs in Waianae, O'ahu. I don't know much about their production, if they're struggling or doing well. When I was little, I knew that they slaughtered their animals at their farm. I don't know how that plays out these days, but there are local pig farms.
Okay, I can't resist stepping onto the soapbox. I think that pigs raised on an actual "family farm" may actually have a chance to be treated better than those from a factory farm. But don't fool yourself about what a farm is in this day and age. Puna probably has real family farms, where "free range chickens" actually means that the chickens do get to walk around freely and aren't crowded into pens with their beaks (and, often, tongues) cut off. But most all of the high production poultry and meat farms are watching the bottom line and don't really have the animal's welfare, or your, the consumer's, health, at heart. If the typical farm-meat animal is allowed to live out its life instead of being slaughtered, after having been pumped with growth hormones, antibiotics, and fed the remains of other animals, they develop tumors, have health problems and die very young.
James W., you've been in this business, can you contest or confirm any of this?