I once heard of someone who raised hogs years ago, and when one of the pigs ate tainted food/forage/poison, the poison was stored in its fat - didn't kill the pig, but when the people ate it, they got very sick. Has anyone heard of such a thing?

-- Janet Ryan (jnryan@southark.cc.ar.us), November 20, 2000

Answers

Janet, I've heard in Appalachian folklore, that if the pig ate lots of buckeyes or acorns, that the fat/meat could make you sick, but have never heard of any personal experiences with this. Annie in SE OH.

-- Annie Miller (annie@1st.net), November 20, 2000.

Sound possible with heavy metals, like mercury, arsenic, maybe lead, and others of a similar nature. I have read about fish storing mercury in their fat, so don't see why it would not be possible for mammals. I don't think biological toxins, bacteria, would only accumulate in the fat. Some diseases, like anthrax, can stay for years in the dead animal, but I have never heard of it contaminating fat.

-- JLS in NW AZ (stalkingbull007@AOL.com), November 20, 2000.

According to Dirk van Loon in "Small Scale Pig Raising" much of the fat that is absorbed into the pig's digestive tract remains intact. In other words, the pork fat will take on some of the characteristics of the fat in the pig's diet.

In areas where fish is cheap and plentiful, for example, he says many hogs are raised on that, but then finished on barley or other grain to avoid "fishy" fat. In Ozark country, he says hogs are frequently raised on chestnuts/acorns, but finished on corn since chestnuts/acorns make the fat bitter and poorly rendered. He didn't say anything about it being poisonous, however, but I can tell you that if I were to eat bitter-tasting fat I'd get sick too (toxic or not!)

-- Leslie A. (lesliea@home.com), November 20, 2000.

I don't know of many poisons that wouldn't hurt the pig first. They use pigs a lot for testing drugs and procedures destined for use in/on humans. If you were dumb enough to eat a poisoned or diseased pig, yes, you'd have trouble. (IE recent anthrax cases in Northern Minnesota from eating an infected cow.) Tainted fat certainly can be caused by diet and water quality. But most people wouldn't eat it (think of taking a whiff of a soured carton of milk) and so it is more a matter of being sickened by the smell or initial taste than of being truly made sick.

I can see where something like warafin could be building up in the animal prior to butchering and then the meat possibly causing some trouble especially to certain people with bleeding disorders. It would be interesting to know just what poisons could build up in a pig without killing it. Gerbil (new address)

-- Gerbil (ima_gerbil@shymail.com), November 21, 2000.

there was a well publicised case of a family in the south who fed the pigs on old seed corn and the mercury in the fungicide killed several of them and left some of the children blind and krippled i guess that was 30 years ago .i cant think of anything in nature that would contaminate pork without making the hog ill first.Land turtles will eat poison mushrooms and the toxin will stay in the fleash .feeds will afect flavor though tasted a beef once that was fatened on mollasas sweet feed thatyou feed horses well the beef was sweet /like the roast was sugar covered not a bad taste but not one you expect or desire in beef

-- george darby (windwillow@fuse.net), November 23, 2000.

I used to apply commercial pesticides as part of my business years ago.I remember an old retired USDA instructor teaching on the subject of human pesticide intoxication. He warned that after a period of time, exposure to pesticides could be absorbed into the body(fat)and would be released into ones "system" when a specific concentration was reached. This instructor gave a detailed explanation of how he almost died from such an event.

I would think that based on this scenerio an animal that would ingest any contaminated feed etc, would certianly be able to pass these contaminates on in their body fat.The USDA would probably be a great source of info. on this subject.

-- Tom Stone (tstone@sclcorp.com), November 27, 2000.