Scientists Want to Breed Healthier Swine…
Bacon is the Star Trek of the meat world. It’s cult following is second only to Comicon. Now, I don’t eat meat, but in my travels I’ve seen deep-fried bacon, canned bacon and even chocolate covered bacon. Eek
We all know bacon is unhealthy, but could your BLT and ham sandwich get a makeover? Maybe, pork specialists are trying to breed pigs with “healthier” fat.
Apparently, when it comes to eating pigs, there’s a difference between intramuscular fat and subcutaneous fat. Intramuscular is fat throughout the skeletal muscle, while subcutaneous fat is the stuff just beneath the skin. Muscle fat keeps meat tender and juicy and not enough makes meat dry.
A project by the Institute of Biosensing Technology and the Centre for Research in Biomedicine at the University of the West of England is aiming to produce healthier meat with less subcutaneous fat, but still maintain enough intramuscular fat.
Experts say the key is to identify genes that control both intramuscular and subcutaneous fat in different breeds of pigs.
Pork is one of the most consumed meats in Europe and I’m sure it’s up there in the United States too. Perhaps this helps explain the epidemic of heart disease and obesity in the Western world, and beyond.
I think bacon is gross. It scares me, but if it doesn’t scare you, maybe a bacon-wrapped Pinhead mutation of Mr. Potato Head will. Eek!
Via Science Daily.
