Well, I never thought that too much green grass would be a
problem, but we have come to the realisation recently that green grass makes
pigs fat! I thought that it should be like a salad bar and that pigs would be
lean and sexy if they ate lots of delicious salad! It turns out that grass is
quite high in sugar and therefore is too high in energy, which is not something
you want too much of in a pig diet.
For those customers that bought pork off us last fortnight at
the markets, you will have noticed that it was a bit fattier. Especially on the
bacon, shoulder roasts and the loin chops. I’m really sorry, but there’s not a
lot we can do about it, except take them off the grass! That’s a pretty radical
move, because after all, we are all about free range, pastured pigs. What’s a
pastured pig without the pasture?
Lucky for us, most of our customers are happy enough with
the fat and I've been recommending to everyone that they save the fat off the bacon
and use it for cooking potatoes or other vegies. Some of our butchers aren't
quite so happy! It does make it hard for them to sell the bacon when it has 2cm
of fat on it! So, if you are one of our customers or one of the butchers that
we sell to customers, please bear with us while we work out what we have to do
about reducing the fat.
One of the reasons that we chose the country that we have
chosen to run our pigs on, was that it was quite deficient soil. The pig manure and
the absolutely fabulous wet season that we are having has started to turn that
around. The grass that we are now growing is very lush and green, which equals
healthy and full of energy! Over the last few weeks, the grass has really
matured and is probably at it’s peak in terms of nutrition. We did cut back the
grain ration as we could see that the pigs were eating a lot of grass and
they've been gradually getting fatter and fatter. Interestingly enough, they
don’t seem to be getting fat from the grain, but the grass. Seems to be the
exact opposite with us humans – grains make us fat and salads make us slim!
What are your thoughts on fat? Are you willing to put up
with the fat so that the pigs can be predominantly pasture fed, or would you
prefer us to reduce the pasture to reduce the fat? We need to meet somewhere in
the middle, so it may mean slashing the grass or (preferably) running cattle,
sheep or goats ahead of the pigs. All options will mean more work for us!! But hopefully things will settle down as the season moves into winter and the grass is not so green.
I think it is a bit of a balance. I am always annoyed that there is not enough fat on most whole leg hams which makes it difficult to glaze. I would't want to feel like I was pay for too much fat but I realise that you have not a great deal off control over how much fat they carry.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately we don't have much control if we want to stick to pasture and no chemicals! I agree though, the typical store bought ham, bacon and pork doesn't have a lot of fat on it.
DeleteFat is great! You can use it for cooking, and it there's really too much, render it and make some soap. People just need to see it as a resource. Its interesting to know that grass=fat, I thought it was the opposite too. I always here that grass-fed beef is more lean. Probably because our poor cattle don't get much nice lush green grass!
ReplyDeleteI try and tell all our customer to keep the fat and render it, but we do still have some that think fat is bad! I'm slowly re-educating them!! :) Cattle will eventually get fat on grass, but when it's grassfed fat, you can use it too, or eat it! I love eating the fat off the steak or roast! It's disgusting off grainfed animals though....the fat almost has a rancid flavour.
DeleteNo please do not reduce the fat - this is healthy and should be eaten. We need the fat in our diet. If only the pigs did not have to have grain feed at all...
ReplyDelete