Media outlets from New York to London have trumpeted the news that Chinese scientists have genetically engineered a pig that can better regulate its body temperature by burning fat in cold months. The side benefit? The hog ends up with leaner meat.
The genetic breakthrough has been heralded as something of a win-win for farmers and consumers: The former could lower the costs of raising their pigs, and the latter could get their pork fix without as many calories from fat. All of this, of course, assumes that a genetically engineered pig from China could be approved for human consumption in the United States, no easy feat considering that it took the Food and Drug Administration nearly two decades to give the green light to GE Atlantic salmon.
Regardless of the regulatory hurdles ahead, small hog farmers are cynical about who would benefit most from these Chinese pigs, whose DNA has been altered to include a gene that helps regulate the animal’s body temperature. The farmers said GE pigs would mostly serve such multinational companies as Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest hog producer, which slaughters millions of pigs annually. The Chinese-owned Smithfield produces hogs bred to be leaner than pasture-raised pigs, and these lean hogs, specifically their piglets, require barns with heat lamps and heated floors to keep the newborns alive in their fragile first days.
The heating costs are not insignificant in large hog operations, where 5,000 animals may be confined under one barn roof. But just as important is the piglet mortality rate, which can range from 10 to 20 percent of newborns, some caused by cold barn conditions, said Todd See, head of the department of animal science at North Carolina State University. A pig with the ability to better regulate its body temperature might cut down on the mortality rates, See said.
Pigs are one of the few mammals without a gene to regulate body temperature, which is why pigs will burrow in hay during the winter months. To alter the animal’s DNA, researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing used a laboratory tool known as CRISPR to edit a mouse gene into pig cells, which were then used to create more than 2,500 embryos. The embryos were inserted into 13 female pigs, surrogates that ultimately gave birth to 12 male piglets.
The researchers noted that all 12 pigs were able to better regulate their body temperatures, while also decreasing their fat levels “without altering physical activity or daily energy demands,” said a report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “This study highlights the potential for biotechnology use in pig breeding to improve cold resistance and lean pork production.”
Small pig farmers sigh when they hear the argument that lean pork tastes just as good as the fattier stuff. To them, it’s merely the latest hype from a hog industry that, for decades, has been obsessed with producing leaner meat — and then persuading Americans to buy more pork with marketing campaigns such as the Other White Meat ads. These smaller farmers have embraced old heritage breeds, such as Berkshires and Gloucestershire Old Spots, which are rich with fat and flavor. And they’ve made their own pitch to consumers: Lean pork is just inferior.
“Making them leaner is going to make them taste worse,” said Gretchen Dimling, who co-owns Whistle Pig Hollow Farm in Reisterstown, Md., with her husband, John. Lean pork, she said, “already tastes like wet cardboard.”
Bev Eggleston, co-founder of EcoFriendly Foods in Moneta, Va., echoed Dimling’s thoughts. “It’s going to be a terrible-tasting pig,” he said. “I don’t know about Chinese cultures, but I bet they like their old-timey pork that they’ve been eating for thousands of years.”
These small hog farmers say GE pigs are a solution to a problem that exists mostly at large-scale operations like Smithfield’s. (Smithfield did not return an email and phone call for comment.) Old heritage breeds tend to have a lot of backfat, which naturally protects them from cold weather.
“They’re walruses,” Eggleston said. “They don’t regulate their body heat. They pack on the fat. It’s not like my pigs are freezing in the winter.”
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