Mulefoot...It is NOT the Other White Meat

Mulefoot pork...you know you want some!

Last night, I opened a package of Mulefoot pork chops. I was taken aback by how pretty the meat was that I HAD to take a photo of it and put it in with this blog post. It looks like a photo of a few small steaks, doesn't it? RED meat with a beautiful layer of white clean fat along the edge. That fat is clean...it looks clean, smells clean, and tastes clean.

I know that meat (and other food products) don't taste good based solely on their breed type. How the animal is raised, what it is fed, what it drinks, if it gets sunshine and fresh air, and so forth all play a crucial role--and these factors always will. This isn't a rant against large farming corporations; they have supplied thousands of grocery stores with relatively inexpensive food. This has been good for folks who don't have a lot of money to spend on food, can't grow their own food (be it veggies and/or food animals), or don't have access to small independent farms. I simply don't want to feed myself or anyone else food that has been unnaturally enhanced to grow quickly and then processed in an assembly-line manner with less than zero regard for nutritional quality. I want and deserve better.

When the pork marketing gurus came out with their campaign that stated pork was "the other white meat", I thought it was brilliant. Seriously, how else could this campaign have influenced so many folks into buying (and liking! *koffkoff*) GREY meat that tastes like...nothing? If your doctor wants to know why you use so much salt on your food, you can probably say, with complete honesty, that it doesn't taste like anything unless you load it up with "seasonings". Those aren't seasonings to enhance the flavor, they're disguises to cover up the lack of flavor!

Let me put away my tiny soapbox and say this: do yourself a favor and try fresh, humanely grown food. It doesn't have to be Mulefoot, although I am wholly biased toward Mulefoot pork and the breed itself. Get a package of pork chops or beef steaks from your local organic or slow-grow farmer and cook them up along side a package of pork chops or beef steaks from the grocery store. Don't use salt or any other seasonings...just taste them side by side. Will the fresh meat taste differently? You bet! Will the fresh meat taste odd? Probably because your palate isn't used to what fresh food tastes like. Will you like it? Only one way to find out and that is to try it for yourself.

Looking for a local slow-grow farmer? Start at http://www.eatwild.com/ or http://www.slowfoodusa.org/ .

Wanna try Mulefoot pork, see a Mulefoot hog up close and personal, and you live near the Ozarks? Visit our farm site for more information at http://www.theheritagehills.com/