Wild Hogs

[runningbird]

Well, I was watching a program on Discovery and it appears that wild hog population has increased from around 1.6 million in 1980 to 6 million today. The entire population could double in 6 months. In 1980 they populated something like 12 states, today 40. They cause tremendous problems with farms and I imagine threaten other species. They are aggressive and have attacked many humans.

What do you think should be done? Is it ethical to go on a mass murdering of an animal to control its population? What else can be done?

[schola]

[Andrew Gubb]

Mass murdering the animal would be a symptom and not cause thing. I'd say we just take 'em as a wake up call and don't do anything to combat them directly.

But if you're hungry?

[schola]

Originally Posted by Andrew Gubb

But if you're hungry?

Yum.

[Andrew Brunelle]

Their population should eventually stabilize if they are out in the wild. Or perhaps there's some man-made factor that is contributing to this population explosion. If that is the case, then they will populate until they can no longer live on the land they populate.

[JSB]

The population won't stabilize quickly if we've already killed off any of their natural predators; they'll have to start starving before a poulation crash, and they can cause a whole lot of destruction (rooting up vegetation) before that.

[runningbird]

> Their population should eventually stabilize if they are out in the wild. Or perhaps there's some man-made factor that is contributing to this population explosion. If that is the case, then they will populate until they can no longer live on the land they populate.

That doesn't seem to be happening with deer. And considering all the problems they are causing waiting around doesn't seem to be an option. Is it really practical to say we can eat all of them? Hunting isn't that easy. Or maybe it is possible, I don't know.

[liamona]

Originally Posted by schola

Yum.

LOL. I agree! As Homer Simpson would say, if God didn't want us to eat pigs, he wouldn't have made them so tasty.

[escapee]

I'm going to scare all of you processed meat eaters out there with the link below. Yes you ought to be scared. Processed meat is as evil as processed carbohydrate and fats (trans).

Its conclusion is rocking the health world with startling bluntness: Processed meats are too dangerous for human consumption. Consumers should stop buying and eating all processed meat products for the rest of their lives.

Processed meats include bacon, sausage, hot dogs, sandwich meat, packaged ham, pepperoni, salami and virtually all red meat used in frozen prepared meals.They are usually manufactured with a carcinogenic ingredient known as sodium nitrite. This is used as a color fixer by meat companies to turn packaged meats a bright red color so they look fresh. Unfortunately, sodium nitrite also results in the formation of cancer-causing nitrosamines in the human body. And this leads to a sharp increase in cancer risk for those who eat them.

TOO Unhealthy for consumption but TOO BIG TO FAIL for economy ?
Processed Meats Declared Too Dangerous for Human Consumption

[Andrew Gubb]

Originally Posted by escapee

I'm going to scare all of you processed meat eaters out there with the link below. Yes you ought to be scared. Processed meat is as evil as processed carbohydrate and fats (trans).



TOO Unhealthy for consumption but TOO BIG TO FAIL for economy ?
Processed Meats Declared Too Dangerous for Human Consumption

I always wondered why salami was that FREAKISH colour.

[garentee]

Originally Posted by escapee

I'm going to scare all of you processed meat eaters out there with the link below. Yes you ought to be scared. Processed meat is as evil as processed carbohydrate and fats (trans).



TOO Unhealthy for consumption but TOO BIG TO FAIL for economy ?
Processed Meats Declared Too Dangerous for Human Consumption

I have raised, butcher, cured and smoked pigs a couple of times. The amount of sodium nitrate which is in the cure for meat products is miniscule. The cure for salami,bacon etc is usually a combination of salt sugar and pink salt(salt with sodium nitrate)pink salt is 6.25% nitrate and the rest is salt. Bear in mind that a basic dry cure is 1 pound of salt,8 ounces of sugar and two ounces of pink salt..so basically the amount of nitrate is 6.25% of 1/13th of the cure. A pretty small amount of nitrate. Nitrate is found in green leafy vegetables especially spinach and in root vegetables. Nitrates can in some cases produce nitrosamines of which some can cause cancer..The main use of nitrates is to prevent botulism..There are many books which cover this in far more detail than I have time to do here, one such book is Harold Mcgees on food and cooking....I got my information here from a book called Charcuterie by Michael Rhulman and Brian Polcyn...

[escapee]

They keyword is Nitrosamines .

Could it be that the nitrate in vegetables are less damaging because there are loaded with vitamins (C,E) and has very little amino acid and thus lesser chance for the formation of nitrosamines ? In addition, we do not usually grill or fry vegetables in high heat until it turns yellowish in color (LOL) ....


Nitrosamine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nitrosamines are produced from nitrites and secondary amines, which often occur in the form of proteins. Their formation can occur only under certain conditions, including strongly acidic conditions such as that of the human stomach. High temperatures, as in frying, can also enhance the formation of nitrosamines. These cooking styles may be responsible for thousands of cases of colon cancer per year across the world.They may be prepared by the Liebermann's reaction.[citation needed]

Under acidic conditions the nitrite forms nitrous acid (HNO2), which is protonated and splits into the nitrosonium cation N=O+ and water: H2NO2+ = H2O + NO+. The nitrosonium cation then reacts with an amine to produce nitrosamine.[citation needed]

Nitrosamines are found in many foodstuffs, especially beer, fish, and fish byproducts, and also in meat and cheese products preserved with nitrite pickling salt. The U.S. government established limits on the amount of nitrites used in meat products in order to decrease cancer risk in the population. There are also rules about adding ascorbic acid ( VITAMIN C) or related compounds to meat, because they inhibit nitrosamine formation.[citation needed]

Processed meat consumption, dietary nitrosamines a...[Int J Cancer. 2006] - PubMed Result

Processed meat consumption has been associated with an increased risk of stomach cancer in some epidemiological studies (mainly case-control). Nitrosamines may be responsible for this association, but few studies have directly examined nitrosamine intake in relation to stomach cancer risk. We prospectively investigated the associations between intakes of processed meat, other meats and N-nitrosodimethylamine (the most frequently occurring nitrosamine in foods) with risk of stomach cancer among 61,433 women who were enrolled in the population-based Swedish Mammography Cohort. Information on diet was collected at baseline (between 1987 and 1990) and updated in 1997. During 18 years of follow-up, 156 incident cases of stomach cancer were ascertained. High consumption of processed meat, but not of other meats (i.e., red meat, fish and poultry), was associated with a statistically significant increased risk of stomach cancer. After adjustment for potential confounders, the hazard ratios for the highest compared with the lowest category of intake were 1.66 (95% CI = 1.13-2.45) for all processed meats, 1.55 (95% CI = 1.00-2.41) for bacon or side pork, 1.50 (95% CI = 0.93-2.41) for sausage or hotdogs and 1.48 (95% CI= 0.99-2.22) for ham or salami. Stomach cancer risk was 2-fold higher among women in the top quintile of N-nitrosodimethylamine intake when compared with those in the bottom quintile (hazard ratio = 1.96; 95% CI = 1.08-3.58). Our findings suggest that high consumption of processed meat may increase the risk of stomach cancer. Dietary nitrosamines might be responsible for the positive association. Copyright 2006 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Don't mess with Mother Nature

More bacon or Hotdog ? Schola ? hahahaha

[liamona]

Originally Posted by escapee

I'm going to scare all of you processed meat eaters out there with the link below.

Oh, but there's plenty of processed meats that are made without nitrates! Whole Foods has some great ones in the deli case. I eat these all the time—they are delish. One of my other favorites is Applegate Farms' no-nitrate hot dogs made with organic grass-fed beef.

I came across an interesting article on nitrates that says, in part:

As is nearly always the case, food fears are short on science and tall on misinformation. Many may remember that scare from the 1970s, claiming that nitrates could be carcinogenic, based on a report said to have found lymphatic cancer in 13 rats. Few consumers heard the rest of the story: that the preliminary MIT research behind that scare had had no peer review prior being acted on by the FDA and USDA, and was later discredited as faulty when an interagency working group of scientists from the FDA, USDA and NIH was convened to review the scientific data. The study was also sent to outside reviewers. As a 1983 risk assessment from the National Research Council noted, normal FDA review procedures hadn’t been followed during that scare, in what had seemed justifiable at the time to protect public health and in response to consumer group petitions; but “normal peer review would have revealed the fatal flaws in the MIT data.”

In 1981, the National Academy of Sciences reviewed the scientific literature and found no link between nitrates or nitrites and human cancers, or evidence to even suggest that they’re carcinogenic. Since then, more than 50 studies and multiple international scientific bodies have investigated a possible link between nitrates and cancers and mortality in humans and found no association.

What may be more surprising to learn is that scientific evidence has been building for years that nitrates are actually good for us, that nitrite is produced by our own body in greater amounts than is eaten in food, and that it has a number of essential biological functions, including in healthy immune and cardiovascular systems. Nitrite is appearing so beneficial, it’s even being studied as potential treatments for health problems such as high blood pressure, heart attacks, sickle cell disease and circulatory problems.

[liamona]

Originally Posted by garentee

Nitrate is found in green leafy vegetables especially spinach and in root vegetables.

That's what the article I just quoted said, too.

There are many books which cover this in far more detail than I have time to do here, one such book is Harold Mcgees on food and cooking....I got my information here from a book called Charcuterie by Michael Rhulman and Brian Polcyn...

I've been meaning to read that! People I know who've read it rave about it.

I'm so glad that more books about traditional foods are being written. They're a nice contrast to the stuff put out by Food Nannies like CSPI.

[escapee]

The main concern is Nitrosamines, Nitrite is merely one of the reactants (together with Secondary amines come from protein) for the formation of Nitrosamines under certain conditions ( PH, Temperature ). It has also been reported that Nitrosamines occurs preferentially in fats (Ie Bacon).

Cooking method to reduce Nitrosamines below 10mug/kg.

Of 25 samples of fried bacon 5 contained N-nitrosodimethylamine (DMNA) and 5 N-nitrosopyrrolidine (NPyr) in concentrations above 10 mu g/kg. Only 1 sample had both above 10 mu g/kg. Frying bacon at low or medium heat for less than 10 min can give DMNA or NPyr below 10 mu g/kg.

Nitrosamine formation in home-cooked bacon. | Wasserman, A. E., Pensabene, J. W., Piotrowski, E. G. | Journal of Food Science |

Antimutagenic Effect of Fruit and Vegetable Aqueous Extracts against N-Nitrosamines Evaluated by the Ames Test - Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry (ACS Publications)

ScienceDirect - Food Control : N-nitrosamine inhibition by strawberry, garlic, kale, and the effects of nitrite-scavenging and N-nitrosamine formation by functional compounds in strawberry and garlic

Oh, but there's plenty of processed meats that are made without nitrates!

That should be the better alternative but nothing beats freshly hunted organic products (IE "unprocessed" Wild hogs ).

FDA named "Fraud and Drug Administration" by consumer health advocacy group

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, under sharp criticism for its drug safety behavior involving anti-inflammatory drugs, antidepressants, and the silencing of its own drug safety scientists, has been offered a new name today: the Fraud and Drug Administration.

The FDA is also under intense scrutiny by legislators. In recent Senate hearings, medical scientist David Graham, who conducts drug safety research for the FDA, described the agency as "incapable of protecting America."

[liamona]

Originally Posted by escapee

That should be the better alternative but nothing beats freshly hunted organic products (IE "unprocessed" Wild hogs ).

So...where do we get some?!

Not all of the processed meats are cooked. Traditionally, they're raw, like bacon and some types of Prosciutto.

[schola]

Originally Posted by escapee

They keyword is Nitrosamines .

Could it be that the nitrate in vegetables are less damaging because there are loaded with vitamins (C,E) and has very little amino acid and thus lesser chance for the formation of nitrosamines ? In addition, we do not usually grill or fry vegetables in high heat until it turns yellowish in color (LOL) ....

Nitrosamine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Processed meat consumption, dietary nitrosamines a...[Int J Cancer. 2006] - PubMed Result

Don't mess with Mother Nature

More bacon or Hotdog ? Schola ? hahahaha

Hmm. Interesting info. I'll check the those links out.

[funchy]

Originally Posted by runningbird

Well, I was watching a program on Discovery and it appears that wild hog population has increased from around 1.6 million in 1980 to 6 million today. The entire population could double in 6 months. In 1980 they populated something like 12 states, today 40. They cause tremendous problems with farms and I imagine threaten other species. They are aggressive and have attacked many humans.

Guess where they're coming from. They didn't spontaneously appear there. Hogs turn feral faster than any other animal.

Commercial pig farms have escapees. These may often be hogs people have turned loose in a fenced area for "sport" hunting, except nobody spends the $$$ for hog-proof fence so a few will escape. If we're going to blame anyone, let's talk about the agribusinesses and the shooting-fish-in-a-barrel sporthunt farms.

While it's true they can be aggressive, who made them that way? But we also have humans which bred and bred and bred livestock for no other trait than meat production. Who is to blame if we have human-aggressive hogs or chickens that peck each other to death? Then we
handle them only to tag, load, or slaughter them. Of course they're not going to like people very much. Some days I don't like people very much, and I wasn't whacked with 2x4s and electric prods.

Step 1 is to stop breeding our livestock for one and only one trait. Then we wouldn't need to sever the beaks off chickens, have dairy cows so crippled they can't walk... or in this case have pigs so aggressive. Hog farms also need to take a bit more responsibility in preventing escapes. Pigs have been raised in America since colonial times, and it's odd that only in the last 20 years has this become a real problem.