Pigs in the context of "Bacon"

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⭐ Core Definition: Pigs

The pig (Sus domesticus), also called swine (pl.: swine) or hog, is an omnivorous, domesticated, even-toed, hoofed mammal. It is named the domestic pig when distinguishing it from other members of the genus Sus. Some authorities consider it a subspecies of Sus scrofa (the wild boar or Eurasian boar); other authorities consider it a distinct species. Pigs were domesticated in the Neolithic, both in China and in the Near East (around the Tigris Basin). When domesticated pigs arrived in Europe, they extensively interbred with wild boar but retained their domesticated features.

Pigs are farmed primarily for meat, called pork. The animal's skin or hide is used for leather. China is the world's largest pork producer, followed by the European Union and then the United States. Around 1.5 billion pigs are raised each year, producing some 120 million tonnes of meat, often cured as bacon. Some are kept as pets.

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Pigs in the context of Animal fats

Animal fats are lipids derived from animals which are used by the animal for a multitude of functions, or can be used by humans for dietary, sanitary, and cosmetic purposes. Depending on the temperature of the fat, it can change between a solid state and a liquid (oil) state. Chemically, both fats and oils are composed of triglycerides. Although many animal parts and secretions may yield oil, in commercial practice, oil is extracted primarily from rendered tissue fats from livestock animals like pigs, chickens and cows. Dairy products yield animal fat and oil products such as butter.

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Pigs in the context of Ascaris

Ascaris is a nematode genus of parasitic worms known as the "small intestinal roundworms". One species, Ascaris lumbricoides, affects humans and causes the disease ascariasis. Another species, Ascaris suum, typically infects pigs. Other ascarid genera infect other animals, such as Parascaris equorum, the equine roundworm, and Toxocara and Toxascaris, which infect dogs and cats.

Their eggs are deposited in feces and soil. Plants with the eggs on them infect any organism that consumes them. A. lumbricoides is the largest intestinal roundworm and is the most common helminth infection of humans worldwide. Infestation can cause morbidity by compromising nutritional status, affecting cognitive processes, inducing tissue reactions such as granuloma to larval stages, and by causing intestinal obstruction, which can be fatal.

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Pigs in the context of Meat industry

The meat industry are the people and companies engaged in modern industrialized livestock agriculture for the production, packing, preservation and marketing of meat (in contrast to dairy products, wool, etc.). In economics, the meat industry is a fusion of primary (agriculture) and secondary (industry) activity and hard to characterize strictly in terms of either one alone. The greater part of the meat industry is the meat packing industry – the segment that handles the slaughtering, processing, packaging, and distribution of animals such as poultry, cattle, pigs, sheep and other livestock.

A great portion of the ever-growing meat branch in the food industry involves intensive animal farming in which livestock are kept almost entirely indoors or in restricted outdoor settings like pens. Many aspects of the raising of animals for meat have become industrialized, even many practices more associated with smaller family farms, e.g. gourmet foods such as foie gras. This heavy industrialization leads to an outsized environmental impact, responsible for significant greenhouse gas emissions, land use change and degradation, and water, air and soil pollution.

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Pigs in the context of Hoof

The hoof (pl.: hooves or hoofs) is the tip of a toe of an ungulate mammal, which is covered and strengthened with a thick and horny keratin covering. Artiodactyls are even-toed ungulates, species whose feet have an even number of digits; the ruminants with two digits are the most numerous, e.g. giraffe, deer, bison, cattle, goats, gazelles, pigs, and sheep. The feet of perissodactyl mammals have an odd number of toes, e.g. the horse, the rhinoceros, and the tapir. Although hooves are limb structures primarily found in placental mammals, hadrosaurs such as Edmontosaurus possessed hoofed hindlimbs. The marsupial Chaeropus also had hooves.

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Pigs in the context of Meat processing

The meat-packing industry (also spelled meatpacking industry or meat packing industry) handles the slaughtering, processing, packaging, and distribution of meat from animals such as cattle, pigs, sheep and other livestock. Poultry is generally not included. This greater part of the entire meat industry is primarily focused on producing meat for human consumption, but it also yields a variety of by-products including hides, dried blood, protein meals such as meat & bone meal, and, through the process of rendering, fats (such as tallow).

In the United States and some other countries, the facility where the meat packing is done is called a slaughterhouse, packinghouse or a meat-packing plant; in New Zealand, where most of the products are exported, it is called a freezing works. An abattoir is a place where animals are slaughtered for food.

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Pigs in the context of Knacker

A knacker (/ˈnækər/), knackerman or knacker man is a person who removes and clears animal carcasses (dead, dying, injured) from private farms or public highways and renders the collected carcasses into by-products such as fats, tallow (yellow grease), glue, gelatin, bone meal, bone char, sal ammoniac, soap, bleach and animal feed. A knacker's yard or a knackery is different from a slaughterhouse or abattoir, where animals are slaughtered for human consumption. Since the Middle Ages, the occupation of "knacker man" was frequently considered a disreputable occupation. Knackers were often also commissioned by the courts as public executioners.

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