Comments on: Certified Organic and Free Range, What is the Difference?

By: Jack and Miriam

Jack and Miriam — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 06:04:05 +0000

We would love to be able to get it up to the Northern Territory, but the freight is the big killer for us, that and the food miles. If you have any ideas on a way of getting them there please let us know.

Cheers Miriam

By: Beryl

Beryl — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 02:27:37 +0000

Please, would you allow your gorgeous Pigs to roam over here to the Northern Territory.

By: Jack and Miriam

Jack and Miriam — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 14:14:29 +0000

Hi Kate,
Our pigs are grassfed, but something very importants to understand is that Pigs, unlike cattle, sheep, buffalo, goats, llama, deer, etc etc. are not multi-stomached animals. They have a single stomach, like us. They are not designed to eat a diet full of only grasses as they don’t have the benefit of stomachs that utilizes bacteria to break down the more fibrous parts of the plant to make it more readily digestable by the animal. Like us they greatly benefit from a diverse diet that includes a lot of good quality vegetable matter, but they also need grains such as wheat, barley, sorghum, faba beans, mung beans, millet etc.

Another interesting point that most people don’t realize is that most pork is raised on a diet high in polyunsaturates like soybean meal, canola meal, corn meal etc. When pigs eat these products they make a fat higher in polyunsaturates, than if they eat a pasture and grain diet. The types of grain that are fed can effect the benefits of the pork/fat. We also soak our ground grain overnight before feeding out. We don’t feed any soy or canola products to our pigs at all. We figured that if it is not good for us, it can’t be good for them. My Husband found a great website about a rare breed of pig that was primarily grown for its fat the Mangalitsa. http://woolypigs.com/_introduction.html There is some great information about how these pigs were traditionally raised in Austria and how if you want to grow a pig for the best quality lard, and dry curing or fermenting, you need to feed it differently than if you want it for just meat production. There is a really good part about rendering lard as well that we found really interesting. Happy reading, it kept us rapt for ages!!

By: Kate

Kate — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 13:51:41 +0000

I was just wondering if pigs that are fed organic grains in addition to grass etc, still qualify as “grassfed”?

All the health experts advise that we must be eating “grassfed” meat in order to reap the health benefits of the good staurated fats.

One book mentioned that grassfed animals who are fed even a small amount of grains, lose much of their health properties…ie. “grassfed” was a must.

Would love to hear others comments.