This Scientist Is Using Genetics to Make Your Pork Less Stinky

Life is hard for pigs.

Between sometimes unsanitary quarters, their inevitable death by electrocution, and the occasional mud-wrestling match against humans in between, these highly intelligent quadrupeds have plenty to deal with before being turned into delicious and versatile cuts of meat.

As rough as their living—and dying—conditions may be, few are as brutal as the practically mandatory surgical castration that male pigs must endure before they hit puberty. The reason is that male hogs are stinky not just in the pig pen, but also in the frying pan, due to a chemical reaction which creates a putrid smell known as "boar taint" in their meat.

We spoke to Maria DeRosa who runs a chemistry lab at Carleton University in Ottawa and is using genetics to fight the stench of boar taint and the practice of pig castration one molecule at a time.

MUNCHIES: Why are all of these pigs castrated? Maria DeRosa: It's kind of a sad story. Basically hormones like testosterone are at higher levels in male pigs. They can break down into compounds that leave a smell behind when the pork is cooked.

Is it only in male pigs? The compound is still there in female pigs, but in much lower levels, so we don't detect it. So if we want to have more appetizing pork, then generally, the farmers won't use male pigs at all, which is half of their stock, for food. If they decide to castrate the pig, it doesn't go through puberty and have the same level of hormone production that creates smelly compounds in the meat.

What kind of castration are we talking about here? Right now there is interest in looking into other forms of castration, but we're talking about surgical or physical castration as opposed to chemical castration. It's not very humane, and in Europe they already have guidelines to make it more humane meat. And this will be coming to Canada soon, eventually.

What is boar taint? Boar taint is just the name that is given to these hormone-type compounds that make the meat taste bad. It's another way of saying that these compounds are present. Different levels of taint can be present, and some people can't detect it at certain levels, but you can imagine that producers do not want any instance of this in their product, so they avoid it completely, often by castrating.

And the smell is bad enough to affect the sale of meat? Absolutely. A lot of people describe the smell as urine or feces. Everyone perceives it differently, some have described it as smelling like sweat. These are not things that you want. Like, you know that smell in the morning when someone is cooking bacon? You wouldn't want it to be tainted with the smell of feces, obviously.

How does your research fit into this picture? We were approached by the Canadian Center for Swine Improvement because we work on biosensors, which are inexpensive robust way of detecting molecules in things like food, or soil. So they asked us if there was a way to detect these compounds in pork blood or in the fat so that they can make some decisions about breeding.

And this allows farmers to know which pigs will make stinky meat? If they can find a pig that has high level of these compounds, then they won't put it it into the next breeding stock. Hopefully each following generation would have less and less of it, as a way of avoiding castration completely. And eventually none of the pigs would have this compound in their genetics.

What do these sensors look like? They basically look like pregnancy tests. They're strip sensors that colour change. It's really simple—anyone can read the colour change. If you see a red dot, the compound is present. You don't need fancy equipment and it could be really amenable to meat-processing facilities.

How is this an improvement on the current model? Our test would be way cheaper than the current model of sending things off to a lab, which can be quite expensive. Or hiring paying and training people to smell raw meat, which you can imagine is very difficult. So instead of going that route, let's use chemistry.

How do you think that this is going to affect the meat industry? Eventually we're hoping that the pork production system could be a little more humane. We wouldn't have to castrate pigs to have them as appetizing pork. Also, as far as farmers go, this is good for their bottom line. They wouldn't have to worry about not using half of their stock for food. It could be more sustainable and economical.

And even the pigs win here, because they get to keep their junk. Everybody wins!

Okay, favorite pork dish. Go! Oh, well, bacon-wrapped anything.

For real? For real. I asked early on during the research if I would be getting any samples—but no.

Thanks for your time, Maria. Wonderful. Take care.