Save the Planet, Eat an Enviropig

You soon may able to help the environment by eating more bacon. On a low-key, bio-secure farm in Canada, scientists are breeding pigs that could be among the first genetically modified farm animal to be approved for human consumption. Each of these Enviropigs look and act like ordinary pigs but contain genes from mice and E.coli bacteria.

Those genes make a small but important difference to the way these pigs process their food.

Ordinarily, pigs cannot easily digest chemicals called phosphates. That means that the stuff that comes out of the back end can be toxic and damaging to the environment. The phosphates are easily washed into waterways, where they can produce a hugely fertile environment for plants. But the plants grow so rapidly that they choke the stream or river and cause huge damage to the ecosystem.

The genetic modification enables these pigs to digest phosphates, which means they are less polluting and cheaper to feed.

Jeremy Cooke of BBC News has more: Link |Photo by Flickr user thornypup used under Creative Commons license