Life in the wild can be dangerous.

Agricultural scientists have long known that even meticulously managed free-range environments subject farm animals to a spectrum of infection. This study, though, brings us closer to a more concrete idea of why the free-range option can pose a heightened health threat to consumers. Just a little time outdoors increases pigs’ interaction with rats and other wildlife and even with domesticated cats, which can carry transmittable diseases, as well as contact with moist soil, where pathogens find an environment conducive to growth. The natural dangers that motivated farmers to bring animals into tightly controlled settings in the first place haven’t gone away.

I've tried to explain this reality to emo activists for years. There are many good reasons to raise animals in more natural conditions, but there are trade-offs. The above article focuses on pigs, but the same is true for chickens with the added threat of predation by everything from dogs to hawks. When you make a business plan for free range chickens it is fairly standard to expect a 10% death loss, while those raised in confinement have only half that rate.

Let’s not forget that animal domestication has not been only about profit. It’s also been about making meat more reliably available, safer to eat and consistently flavored. The critique of conventional animal farming that pervades food discussions today is right on the mark. But it should acknowledge that raising animals indoors, fighting their diseases with medicine and feeding them a carefully monitored diet have long been basic tenets of animal husbandry that allowed a lot more people to eat a lot more pork without getting sick.

The fact that we’ve lost our way and found ourselves locked in the mess of factory farming, should not deter us from realizing that — if we genuinely hope to produce pork that’s safe and tasty — instead of setting the animal world partly free, we might have to take greater control of it. Do not underestimate the importance of this challenge. After all, if clean and humane methods of production cannot be developed, there’s only one ethical choice left for the conscientious consumer: a pork-free diet.

Well, no. That's a bogus narrative by a poorly educated history professor with a book to sell that seeks to leverage the current fad for local food. The desire for uniformity is antithetical to local food which necessarily varies by location, a fact that is celebrated. Consistent pork flavor is no more of value to foodies than consistent wine flavor. It varies by location and even year since mother nature is that variable. Uniformity is something that is desired for commodity foods so that origins are masked.

It's trivially simple to make such foods safe: test them. You know you are dealing with an agenda wacko when his bottom line is : "there’s only one ethical choice left for the conscientious consumer: a pork-free diet."

There really is no reason to resist testing. Some argue that tests can be wrong, yielding both false negatives and false positives, but the accuracy rate is still very, very good and so would reduce threats to human health much more than regulation or inspection. In a sense a test is the ultimate inspection. In fact, regulation and inspection could be reduced and so pay for testing, making such a system cost neutral.

Testing is getting ever better and ever cheaper as technologies advance. Get used to it. It's less invasive and restrictive yet it is also more accurate and effective.