Pork — the other white meat. Should you eat it … inject it … or reject it? Does all this sound “kosher” to you?
YOUR BOD
First there were two attention-getting articles by Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times* (see below) about how our food supply is tainted with a disease related to hog farms. It’s called MRSA, which is an antibiotic-resistant staph infection that comes from our putting antibiotics in the food pigs eat to keep them from getting sick … before they actually are sick. In other words, we have another superbug on our hands.
MRSA is killing more than 18,000 Americans annually — even more of a killer than AIDS in this country. And it seems that in the U.S. 45 percent of pig farmers in one sample group carried MRSA, as did 49 percent of the hogs tested. Note to cooks: As long as you fully cook the pork, it’s fine. Do be careful to clean up wherever the meat sat before cooking.
YOUR FACE
Just as this was settling in, there was the New York Observer headline: “Oink If You Want to Look Young!”. Really!? Arriving on the market during September 2008 (but still under-the-radar for you non-celebs) is Evolence, derived from pig tissue and seemingly better than the others — those being Botox, Restylane, Radiesse, and Sculptra. One doctor says that because of the lack of swelling one advantage of Evolence is that it’s “easier to hide from your husband.”  (Hooray?!)
Evolence was bought by Johnson & Johnson from — ready for the irony in this — Israelis, and the product has been approved by at least one rabbinical council according to Spokeswoman Monica Neufang. She also said: “We think we have a game changer on our hands … By the time you purify the product, the collagen that results is virtually identical to human collagen.”
So … call me crazy. Does all of this unrelated pig news seem somehow related? Maybe there’s a message here? Oink.
Harriett
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Sources:
* By Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times: “Our Pigs, Our Food, Our Health,” March 11th; Pathogens in our Pork?” March 16th.
“Oink If You Want to Look Young,” by Meredith Bryan in The New York Observer, March 16, 2009
