OBEY THE FLOATING PIG, CHILDREN!

January 5, 2004 7:51 AM

Pork 4 Kids! The National Pork Board brings all you children a fun trip through the world of pork! Yay!
posted by XQUZYPHYR (38 comments total)

hmm, main window of the site breaks when I click on one of the links, but aside from that... this is comedy gold!
posted by twiggy at 8:11 AM on January 5, 2004

I "visit(ed) the farm", and I had no idea how lucky these pigs are! I can't figure out how they make it from the farm to my Sausage McMuffin, but I'm sure it's really nice and fun.
posted by trharlan at 8:19 AM on January 5, 2004

Just as lame as the pork billboard campaign. Whoever thought that a plain beige background with plain black text would make pork seem exciting should be shot. I drive past a 'Time flies when you're having pork' billboard every day, and it's pretty much enough to make me never eat pork again.
posted by tippiedog at 8:22 AM on January 5, 2004

from the pork quiz...

4. What are full-grown male pigs called?
 
a. Sows
b. Pigs
c. Boars
d. Men

someone at pork for kids has a sense of humor.


posted by birdherder at 8:27 AM on January 5, 2004

And don't forget Cool 2B Real, which is for little girls. Gosh it is cool!
posted by slackdog at 8:37 AM on January 5, 2004

It seems really lame to link to my own blog, but I swear it's highly relevant. I came across some links to sites marketing beef to kids (and specifically preteen girls), and the company responsible for all of this, Circle 1 marketing.
posted by hammurderer at 8:39 AM on January 5, 2004

the farm to my Sausage McMuffin, but I'm sure it's really nice and fun
Get Kids Involved:
Kids are much more likely to eat something they helped prepare. Let them mix ingredients, sample spices and taste test along the way.
Give them credit for their suggestion...errr, wait most most children will hanging out in the kitchen while parents cook a meal, not every meal yet several of the week.
posted by thomcatspike at 8:40 AM on January 5, 2004

I'm no vegetarian, but this is another time when I consider how we (a) anthropomorphise cutey animals and (b) encourge people to eat them in the same place.
The 'diary of a farm kid' activity talks about rearing the animals, showing them - but never killing them, which is an obvious precursor to eating them. (One hopes).

And isn't it odd game helping a little piglet find his mummy is in a site devoted to encouraging kids to eat dead pigs?

I wonder if it's to do with the English language's different words for animals and the meat (pig/ pork, cow/ beef) which someone once told me was because Norman French people ate the meat that Anglo-Saxon farmers reared.
posted by Pericles at 8:44 AM on January 5, 2004

Troy: Come on Jimmy, let's take a peek at the killing floor.
Jimmy: Ohhh!
Troy: Don't let the name throw you Jimmy. It's not really a floor, it's more of a steel grating that allows material to sluice through so it can be collected and exported.

</simpsons>
posted by amery at 8:48 AM on January 5, 2004

I hope somebody out there with crack Flash skills takes that Pork Board animation and ummm.....tweaks it -

A cleaver will emerge from the right side of the frame and chop that obnoxious little floating pig into slices which will fall neatly into a fry pan (a little flame will emerge under the fry pan to cook the meat).

The pig slices will then be grabbed and devoured by the floating children.
posted by troutfishing at 8:53 AM on January 5, 2004

I knew that "Farm Tour" would be a riot, but I especially wanted to see how they handled the "end of the story" there at the homespun farm. I never expected it to be quite as surreal as it was - after pages of straight photos & captions with little piggy clip-art, at the end, the clip-art piggies are happily trotting into a square black void - a seeming rip in the space-time continuum of the wide-angle farm photo. Heading right off into absolute nothingness. Wow.
posted by soyjoy at 8:53 AM on January 5, 2004

Maybe the Pork Board can team up with the National Bread Council, which is very concerned about the new Atkins Diet inspired low-carb craze sweeping the nation.

They can co-promote a new bread and pork sandwich, The Porkwich™ - "Good for meals good for snacks. It's always good -The Porkwich™ "
posted by troutfishing at 8:59 AM on January 5, 2004

soyjoy - that's my screensaver for the day.
posted by troutfishing at 9:02 AM on January 5, 2004

I visited the Pork Board* home site and discovered the Swine Welfare Assurance Program

This sounds like creeping socialism for pigs to me.


*Is the Pork Board anything like a Cork Board? Because I have a friend who makes cork boards, and I own two of these things. They are nice, but not really akin to pork, I think.

I have to get off this pork thing though. It's going to my head - which seems to be filling up with lard, or cholesterol.

Hey! Wait a minute....
posted by troutfishing at 9:23 AM on January 5, 2004

And isn't it odd game helping a little piglet find his mummy is in a site devoted to encouraging kids to eat dead pigs?
Suppose so, as long as you don't name them. Having had a parent raised on a farm, the animals that were named were usually spared. or the one whom named it had hunger instead for "dinner".
posted by thomcatspike at 10:23 AM on January 5, 2004

>from the pork quiz...

>>4. What are full-grown male pigs called?

>>a. Sows
>>b. Pigs
>>c. Boars
>>d. Men

>someone at pork for kids has a sense of humor.

Imagine the hilarity if the Beef Board had a quiz with a question about what fully-grown cows are called, and one of the options was women!

Oh how we'd laugh.
posted by Blue Stone at 10:30 AM on January 5, 2004

Hey, nobody's made the obvious joke about the name of this site. Sounds like an old "To-Do Today" item for...

and there you fill in Michael Jackson or your favorite Catholic priest, depending on whom you want to offend...
posted by soyjoy at 10:36 AM on January 5, 2004

I still don't understand why we insist on having meat (horrible, lowest-possible-grade variety that it is) in school cafeterias and such. One would think it would be cheaper to do them veggie style.
posted by kaibutsu at 12:05 PM on January 5, 2004

"Pork - It's what's for Congress!"
posted by troutfishing at 12:58 PM on January 5, 2004

and one of the options was women!
"oink" it went over my head, until you pointed it out.
posted by thomcatspike at 1:12 PM on January 5, 2004

One would think it would be cheaper to do them veggie style.

Well, yeah, that might be the case if our country's food industry was truly a free market, rather than one completely rigged by meat lobbyists and their friends....
posted by soyjoy at 1:50 PM on January 5, 2004

WASHINGTON (AP) – When a new Congress convenes in 2003 with Republicans in charge, topping the to-do list will be aid for drought-stricken vegetable, fruit and grain farmers left out of the Bush administration’s $752 million pre-election relief package for cattle ranchers
Saw a report recently about the "corn" farmer being the # 1 harvest in the USA and it will not change. Which sucks as everything seems to contain corn as an ingredients. Do we have a chance fighting diabetes with this being the #1 harvest?
Now wonder what kind of "pig feed" is mostly used.
posted by thomcatspike at 1:59 PM on January 5, 2004

As is so often the case, nobody says it like the Onion.
posted by George_Spiggott at 2:59 PM on January 5, 2004

Just as lame as the pork billboard campaign.

Too bad they didn't include this one.
posted by Wet Spot at 4:10 PM on January 5, 2004

My attempt at porcine humor for a BBQ restaurant:

A Brief History of the Pig

50,000 BC - First pig killed, eaten raw.

49,999.99 BC - Next pig killed, roasted over open fire, barbecue is born.

1,000 BC - God forbids Israelites from eating pigs, Middle Eastern pig population soars.

32 AD - Pigs are vilified in the Bible, as Jesus commands, "Do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces" (Mt 7:6).

600 - Dark Ages begin. Little is known about pigs during the next centuries.

1492 - Pigs accompany Columbus on his journey to the new world. Several escape and spread diseases that wipe out indigenous people.

1848 - Karl Marx and Frederic Engels write "Communist Manifesto." Pigs finally have political representation.

1903 - Pigs as transportation. Harley-Davidson manufactures its first "hawg."

1916 - After witnessing a porcine epileptic seizure, Clarence Saunders opens Piggly Wiggly in Memphis, TN as the first self-serve grocery store.

1929 - Days of living "high on the hog" are over as stock market plummets.

1961 - CIA and President Kennedy bungle Bay of Pigs invasion.

1996 - Babe takes home several Oscars, proves pigs can act.

Future - World still waits for pigs to fly
posted by Frank Grimes at 5:29 PM on January 5, 2004

"You are a pork chop."

That cartoon was about the most bizarre thing I've ever seen. Peggy Pork Chop is surely the most vile cartoon character ever invented in a corporate cubicle, with Henry Rib Roast not far behind. For burnt dead animals, they're awfully enthusiastic!!! Yay!!!
posted by moonbird at 5:34 PM on January 5, 2004

Well, this was a fine pork roast....errr...thread.

I ate ribs last week - the first time in about 15 years, I'd say. I think they were from a crazy cow though. They were delicious.
posted by troutfishing at 9:04 PM on January 5, 2004

Do you want to know what The Meatrix is?
posted by weston at 11:45 PM on January 5, 2004

Porkography. Porko. Porkographic. I CAN'T BELIEVE PEOPLE EAT PORK!
posted by ParisParamus at 3:33 AM on January 6, 2004

Hmmm, puts me in mind of the Australian pork industry ads currently doing the rounds that feature a 'hot and bothered' looking woman holding a spatula to her forehead as if swooning.

The strapline - "Go on, you'd love a bit of pork" OR "Talk pork to me, you rogue".

<led zep> ...cause you know sometimes words have two meanings</led zep>
posted by backOfYourMind at 5:11 AM on January 6, 2004

The Pork Board and The Cattlemen's association need some new talent now that all of their PR people have left to go and work for the USDA, to earn their pay digging firewalls against mad cow disease by absent-mindedly scratching at the ground with their plastic coffee stirrers.

backOfYourMind, I think you've found them a juicy new hire there.

Those ribs I ate last week - someone just informed me that they were pork because cow ribs aren't commonly eaten and so would be specifically labelled as cow ribs, to distinguish them from pig ribs.

So I guess I'm not mad but - ParisParamus - I eat Pork ! IT WAS GOOD! (sorry, pigs. I won't do it again - for a long while)
posted by troutfishing at 9:02 AM on January 6, 2004

The people of Okinawa eat a very pork-heavy diet and they tend, on average, to lead extremely long lives.
posted by raysmj at 12:00 PM on January 6, 2004

But is it the pork, or some other factor/s?
posted by troutfishing at 2:10 PM on January 6, 2004

troutfishing: I don't know, but it certainly doesn't seem to be detrimental. In any case, it's my understanding that the matter has only begun to be seriously researched, really.
posted by raysmj at 3:20 PM on January 6, 2004

raysmj - There's something going on in Okinawa that offsets the pork, I think - probably the same factor/s that offset/s the property of soy proteins to cause male brain atrophy - "A possible signal contrary to a soy-dementia link is the low prevalence of dementia [14] and high consumption of soy in Okinawa, Japan. [15] However, that negative correlation, like any correlation, does not prove causation. For example, perhaps soy does cause dementia but other factors in Okinawa offset the effect"

Weird, huh?
posted by troutfishing at 8:18 PM on January 6, 2004

Can't eat pork, can't eat beef, can't eat tofu, can't eat salmon or tuna........

What the hell can I eat.

Oh yeah - Tilapia !
posted by troutfishing at 8:20 PM on January 6, 2004

troutfishing: Maybe the overwhelming variable is lifestyle - that is, not getting too damned stressed out about it all, striving for some balance, etc. A primal scream never hurts, though, so if you're in the mood go ahead.
posted by raysmj at 9:43 PM on January 6, 2004

raysmj - You've hit the nail on the head. The most toxic substances our bodies routinely endure are - so I've heard - stress hormones. So - being relaxed covers up for a whole multitude of sins. Sex helps more than anything.

Stress......

Worse than pork, soy, cigarettes maybe, booze, or 50 gallon drums of benzene to boil yer bones down to jello...stress

Breathe slowly and deeply. In, out, in out..........
posted by troutfishing at 7:23 PM on January 7, 2004