Special Section: Pork

Well-fed pork
Full-fat soy diet yields pork with higher Omega 3s

By Dan Lemke

 
Minneota, Minn. — The old phrase, ‘you are
what you eat,’ holds true even for hogs.

Pigs fed a full-fat extruded-soybean diet
yield meat high in Omega 3s and Vitamin E,
according to a meat analysis conducted by
AURI chemist Jerry Crawford last fall.
 

Bruce Bot and eight other southwest
Minnesota hog producers requested the
study. Bot’s cousin and business partner Eric Bot opened Custom Extruding LLC in
Minneota, Minn., which annually processes 60,000 to 70,000 bushels of soybeans into full-fat
meal. With soy oil’s health benefits, Bruce and Eric wondered if feeding the meal to hogs
would enhance the meat’s quality.
 

AURI tests proved them right. Vitamin E and Omega 3 fatty acids — known to reduce
heart-attack risk and fight cancer — were 250 percent higher in soy-meal fed pork versus
conventional. Also, a South Dakota State University sensory panel found the taste and
texture compared favorably to traditionally-produced pork.
 

Full-fat extruded soybeans have long been fed to hogs, but mostly to lactating sows and
young pigs because farmers have been leery of adding excess fat to market hogs, bred for
leanness. However, a common problem with today’s hogs is that “they can’t eat enough
to grow optimally,” Bruce Bot says.
 

The Bots say the high-energy soy ration is better used by hogs. “Even if the cost
of the extruded beans is higher, the feed efficiency is improved, so it takes less feed
to put on a pound of pork,” Bruce Bot says.
 

Custom Extruding’s process uses pressure and friction to raise soybeans’ temperature to about 300 degrees, which fractures cell membranes and releases oil to blend with the meal. To make conventional meal, oil is removed from the soybean. Extruding doesn’t remove anything but a small percentage of water.
 

The process also negates certain trypsin inhibitors present in raw soybeans that can keep animals from digesting soy meal. Most monogastric animals cannot digest raw soybeans and may lose weight
from eating them. Hogs can fully use the deactivated meal.
 

“Today’s pigs perform better on extruded soybeans,” Eric Bot contends. “We want to process feed so that it can be used most optimally by the animal.”
 

Now that farmers know the extruded meals’ health benefits, “we’re helping to determine if there’s a market that will allow them to receive a premium for their pork,” says Dennis Timmerman, AURI project development
director. The producer group, which markets about 5,000 extruded-soy-fed hogs annually, is looking at various distribution channels and could possibly design its own label.
 

“We’re adding value twice,” Eric Bot adds, “first to the soybeans, then to the pork.”