When we think about sustainability, we usually think about the environment but true sustainability can offer much more than this.
Along with the environment we must also do what is best for our longer-term health and happiness and make these choices which are aligned with sustainable environmental choices and which we are happy to repeat decade after decade.
As we need to eat every day, sustainability needs to begin with our food choices. A plant-based lifestyle is often held up as the sustainable choice but this is not suited to many people’s health and happiness. However, today there is now a sustainable meat option.
Olive Pork is a new Irish pork brand which offers consumers a true sustainability choice. There are four parts to this.
Firstly, food needs to taste good so we can enjoy eating the food over time without needing to add sauces for flavour. Pork is the most consumed meat in the world but not loved by many. The flavour of pork can change depending on the foods that the pig eats - in particular, adding olives to the pig diets creates juicy and succulent pork, this is why Olive Pork have used pork from olive-fed pigs for their sausages.
Secondly, the olive ingredient is actually the olive pulp. This is the leftover pulp once the olive oil have been extracted. Previously, this was being dumped as it was not interesting to consumers, while also emitting greenhouse gases into the environment. That has now changed as feeding this pulp to pigs upcycles this pulp into really tasty pork, while also reducing the environmental footprint from other food production sectors.
Thirdly, the pork is a source of Omega 3. Omega 3 is something that everyone’s body needs and we must consume it so our bodies have a supply of it. Omega 3 helps in many things, one of the key roles it plays is in providing our body with the building blocks for our hormones. This helps with our mood and feelings. So, a true sustainable food choice should also prioritise our long-term health. The omega 3 from plant-based sources is ten times less useful than the omega 3 found in pork.
Lastly, the pork meat that Olive Pork use is from the shoulder meat. Shoulder meat has many connective tissues as it connects the body, legs and head. This means that the meat in pork shoulders is high in collagen. Collagen is again something our bodies need. When we are younger our bodies can produce what it needs but as we get older, we need to supplement. Collagen is important in helping sustain good skin condition over the longer term. In some Asian cultures they refer to this meat as “skin food”, this helps to sustain our health on the outside.
This is why Olive Pork have have christened these “Sustainable Sausages” as they are part of sustaining our mood, our skin, the environment we live in, as well as tasting great so we can enjoy the short term too.
The sausages go on sale nationwide in all Aldi stores on Thursday 19th May for one week. Will you support sustainability in your next weekly shop?
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