I once got naked on a pig farm for work.
There was a shower requirement before we could go in. So yes, I mean actually naked, actually showering, actually on a pig farm. Blogging has taken me to some places.
And somehow, that is not even the part of this trip that requires the most explanation.
I also artificially inseminated a pig.
Me. I did the squeezing.
This is my recollection of a hosted pork-industry press trip to North Carolina in September 2014. The original invitation came through the Animal Agriculture Alliance, with trip details coordinated by APCO Worldwide. I’m telling this story now, looking back at my memories, emails, and photographs from that visit.
I had to look up “charcuterie” before I went
I found the email I sent before the trip, and honestly, it is a pretty good introduction to who I was going into this.
I told them my grandparents had owned farms my whole life. I had a healthy respect for the work farmers did, but I had never been to a pig farm. Cattle, fruits, vegetables? Yes. Pigs? New territory.
I also admitted that I’d had to look up the word “charcuterie.” I was looking forward to the class because I love learning new things.
This was back in 2014. The itinerary included dinner at 18 Seaboard in Raleigh, a visit to Prestage Farms and its contract growers, a Smithfield facility visit, and a charcuterie class at North Carolina State University.
It was a whole farm-to-fork experience. And I was apparently very willing to participate.
The pig part was hands-on. Very hands-on.
When I tell this story, I need to be clear about something: I did not just stand there while somebody demonstrated artificial insemination.
I was the one doing it.
There are plenty of things I expect to explain when someone asks what I do for a living. This one takes a minute.
I went on a work trip, took a shower at a pig farm, helped inseminate a pig, and learned about charcuterie. That is an actual sequence of things from my life.
But I did not go into the slaughter room
They offered to take our group into the pig slaughter room. I chose not to go.
I’m good. I know I’m a part of the food chain and all that, but I don’t need to watch pigs’ souls leave their bodies or whatever.
I understood what happened in there. I didn’t need to see it happen.
That is a different part of the story from the funny one about me doing the squeezing. Both happened on the same trip. I don’t really know how to make those fit together neatly, and I don’t think I have to.
The place was so clean. The smell is what I remember.
The meat-packaging plant was super weird for me.
It was so clean. I want to say that clearly, because this is not a story about seeing a dirty facility.
But there was this underlying smell that, to me, felt like death. I still don’t quite know what to think about that.
I don’t know what caused it. Maybe knowing where I was shaped how I experienced it. Maybe that association was in my head. I can tell you what I remember without pretending I have a scientific explanation for it.
The cleanliness and the smell are both part of the memory.
I’m not sure I ever told this whole story
Looking back, there’s a huge chance I never wrote this part.
Back then, it felt like we had to appear so golden to sponsors. Polished. I wonder how much of the actual experience I left out because I was trying to do that.
I haven’t found an old post that answers that question, so I’m not going to tell you for sure that I never wrote it. But I remember the trip. And now I’m telling you this part.
It was funny, and it was uncomfortable, and I still have questions about how I felt. That is a perfectly honest account of a work trip.
Also, once again, because this detail matters: I was the one who did the squeezing.
