Obviously the thread is about the oldtime photo and
not about what pigs were fed circa 1900. Having stated
that I recall my college swine production class in the
early 70s. Traditionally, the problem with pork is that
pigs were fed garbage which would infect the animal
w/the parasite trichinosis. The undercooking of pork
products exposed human consumers to the parasite.
When modern day large producers of swine began
to feed corn and other grains to their pigs and elim-
inated the garbage the problem vastly diminished.
However, because pigs will always tend to eat any-
thing they can get their snouts around it is still a good
idea to sufficiently cook the pork. Besides, unlike
a nice rare beefsteak, undercooked porkchops are
just not appealing to most of us.
I remember buying bacon with a visible tape worm running through the slices back in the day....from Kmart. Didn’t learn what it was until I took biology 101 and was grossed out. The butchers were supposed to cut the worm out! To this day I like my bacon blackened.
I once had a obviously sheltered young waitress ask me how I wanted my porkchops... I was like, “uh? cooked?”