I
wish I had a nickel for each time I have heard someone say “everything is
better with bacon.” Men especially seem
to like their bacon in the morning. But
they have it all wrong. What they should be saying is “everything is better with porcine plasma.”
Porcine
plasma? That was my first reaction
too. I’ve mentioned porcine plasma to
several friends and family members and none had ever heard of it. Neither had I until I was reading the Wall
Street Journal about two months ago and I came
across an article about how millions of young pigs have died in the U.S. in the
past year due to a diarrhea virus. Of course,
the focus of the story was about how this will increase the price of pork for
consumers.
But
the article also noted that “some researchers say that porcine plasma could be
spreading the virus from adult pigs.” I
thought to myself, what the heck is porcine plasma? So I decided to research porcine plasma and
write this article.
Porcine
plasma is an ingredient that has been a mainstay of piglet diets in the U.S.
for the past 30 years. Piglets are
supposed to get their nutrition from their mothers. But with factory farming it is more profitable
to take the piglets from their mothers and feed them grain instead of their
mother’s milk. The piglets get fatter
more quickly and therefore can be slaughtered more quickly. The mothers can be impregnated again without
the need to worry about them feeding their babies. This translates into more profits.
However,
the problem is that piglets are susceptible to disease when they don’t have the
nutrition from their mother’s milk. No
worries, porcine plasma solves that problem.
Hog farms found that porcine
plasma provides antibodies to protect young pigs from disease. But I still haven’t answered the question,
what is porcine plasma?
As
you might imagine, when pigs are slaughtered there is a lot of blood. This blood is collected in troughs and then
stored in chilled vats. The plasma is
then separated from the blood cells. The
plasma is made into a powder and then this powder is added to the grain that is
fed to piglets. That is porcine
plasma. It is the powdered blood of
slaughtered pigs and it is fed to piglets.
Let
that sink in for a few moments. Baby
pigs are eating the blood of adult slaughtered pigs. Perhaps the blood of an uncle or aunt.
You
might think I am making this up. But if
you have any doubt then simply Google “North American Spray Dried Blood and
Plasma Protein Producers.” It goes by
NASDBPP for short. That’s right, there
is a trade organization for porcine plasma producers. There are five producers in the U.S.—three in
Iowa, one in Minnesota and one in Wisconsin.
It is big business. The mission
statement of the NASDBPP states it is “committed to producing safe,
high-quality blood products for use in feeds for commercial livestock and companion
animals.” Companion animals? Of course.
If porcine plasma is good enough for your breakfast bacon it certainly
is good enough to feed to your dog or cat.
But
don’t worry. Because blood products can
carry mad cow disease, the FDA has banned the use of cow blood for feed. But pig and horse blood is okay. And by the way, it is not only fed to
piglets, but also is put in feed for cattle and chickens. That means that the calf that later became
your hamburger and the baby chick that later became a nugget probably also ate
porcine plasma.
So
what is porcine plasma? It is a
by-product of slaughterhouse waste. It
is powdered blood that is collected from slaughtered animals. It is fed to the animals that you eat.
What
do vegan men say? We say that you are
what you eat. If you eat pork or beef or
chicken, you are very likely eating porcine plasma. So next time just order a PPLT sandwich –
porcine plasma, lettuce and tomato.
Yum.
*Doug Meier is an attorney
that practices in Lakewood, Colorado and writes this monthly column, Vegan Men
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