Food waste has no impact on meat: chocolate for pigs

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This is a promising solution to reduce food waste, the Federal Competence Center for Agricultural Research Agroscope announced on Monday.

For the study, which was published in the journal “animal”, researchers from the University of Milan and Agroscope replaced 30 percent of the grain in the diet of pigs of the “Swiss Edelschwein” breed with salty foods such as pasta, bread and snacks or with sweet foods such as chocolate, cereal and cookies.

All 36 pigs remained in good health throughout the entire experimental period, the researchers wrote in the study. Growth performance, i.e. the speed at which a pig gained weight, was also not affected, the study showed. The total fat content of the pork also remained the same. However, pigs fed sweet foods had slightly more belly fat.

The food waste fed to the pigs belongs to the so-called ‘former food products’, as specified in the study. This also applies to processed foods that are unfit for human consumption due to logistical, production or packaging errors. Unlike gastro-waste, these ‘former food products’ can be fed to pigs.

Conventional pig feed consists largely of soya and grain. Up to 70 percent of the grain harvested worldwide is fed to animals, the authors wrote in the study. At the same time, about a third of food intended for human consumption is wasted. According to the research, feeding some of this wasted food could reduce the environmental impact of food production. (SDA)

Source:Blick