March 13th, 2009
Righteous Porkchop

With a title like Righteous Porkchop, Nicolette Hahn Niman‚ recently released book is hard to miss. Which is a good
thing too, considering how it takes a somewhat difficult topic like factory farms and makes it accessible to a wide audience. The relevance of this book is painfully clear, in an era where factory farms have become the norm. Hahn Niman does more than just profile the megafarms that are causing pollution, as can be seen on our Factory Farms map, but she also tours traditional farms and notes how they run their practices and what makes them both an efficient and safer alternative to factory farms.

She focuses much of her work on the U.S. hog market, which , as you can see in our report The Trouble With Smithfield, is a disaster of enormous proportions. Rather than just griping about the
problem, however, she also provides recommendations for what to look for when grocery
shopping, so consumers know the right questions to ask and what labels to look
for.Righteous Porkchop 2

The evils of factory farms are almost too many to count ,
though Hahn Niman does an excellent job of breaking them down properly. In an
era where climate change is an increasing threat, the fact that over twenty
percent of the fossil fuel used in the United States goes towards food
production is definitely cause for concern.
Meanwhile, the amount of carbon dioxide released, as noted by a 2005
Environmental Protection Agency report, is equal to the amount that 141 million
cars release per year.

The problem goes far beyond pollution, however. The animals
are kept in unsanitary and cramped conditions, the farms emit toxic chemicals
that cause substantial air pollution affecting surrounding communities, and the
farm workers themselves experience a range of negative physical effects from
working in such atrocious conditions. Consumers themselves are also affected,
thanks to the widespread use of antibiotics and artificial hormones in factory
farms. Along these lines Hahn Niman‚ book provides some startling figures
regarding salmonella found in sample packages of ground meat, which further reinforces
the point that human health is being unnecessarily put at risk for the sake of
big agribusiness.

The book‚ closing paragraph cites a quote from our very own
Brother Dave Andrews, Food & Water Watch‚ senior representative, in which
he reminds us that “Eating is a moral act.” With positive reviews from The San Francisco Chronicle,
The Globe and Mail,
and many others, it is clear that Righteous Porkchop has succeeded in
making that important point.

- Sofia Baliño

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