January 8, 2001 DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - Pigs gobbling potato chips could result in better-tasting pork chops and sows savoring yogurt could lead to a reduction of salmonella in pork.
Those are conclusions from studies that researchers at Iowa State and Ohio State universities are making into the diets of swine.
The Iowa research project is feeding hogs a yogurt-like food in hopes of lowering salmonella levels in the animals. A three-year, $600,000 grant from the U.S. Agriculture Department is paying Iowa State to test alternatives to antibiotics in swine.
Salmonella sickens up to 4 million Americans a year. Some strains have become resistant to antibiotics, said Hank Harris, a microbiologist involved with the project.
"If resistant salmonella makes it to humans through food, it could pass its resistance to other organisms, making treatment of human diseases harder," Harris said.
Preliminary studies indicate salmonella levels have been reduced in young pigs fed milk containing Lactobacillus, a bacterium taken from the pigs' intestinal tracts. It is also a common yogurt culture.
"We're basically feeding yogurt to pigs," Harris said. Ohio State researchers found that potato chips put weight on young pigs faster than a regular corn diet because the oil in the chips supplies hogs with more energy than corn, said Sha Rahnema, an animal nutritionist at the Agricultural Technical Institute in Wooster, Ohio.
"We found that replacing 10 to 15 percent of the corn worked best," Rahnema said.
More research will be conducted to see how the chip diet affects sows and chickens.
Chip research began in 1995 as a class project when students were asked to come up with alternative feed sources for hogs. The proximity of a Shearer's Foods Co. potato chip factory led the young researchers to the snack food.
Shearer's donated small, discolored or broken chips, which were mixed with other hog feed ingredients.
One advantage to hog producers would be reduction in feed costs with a partial potato chip diet. Potato chip scraps cost $6 to $7.50 a ton, while corn is priced at more than $75 a ton.
A taste panel of Ohio State faculty and staff concluded that in one taste test, pork from the chip-fed pigs was juicier and tasted better. Most of the time, however, the panel could not tell the difference between corn-fed pork and potato-chip chops.
Corn producers need not worry about losing a significant market to potato growers yet.
Edith Munro, a spokeswoman for the Iowa Corn Growers Association and Iowa Corn Promotions Board, said potato chip makers could not supply enough scraps to significantly displace corn as a feed staple for hogs.
"I do not personally think this will be anything to get excited about," she said.
Copyright 2001 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
