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Pork without Drugs

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You may soon start seeing a new phrase on some pork labels: “raised without ractopamine” or similar wording. Ractopamine is a drug that makes the animals gain weight while eating less, and is given to most conventionally raised pigs in the United States. Organic pig farmers and some others who produce “natural” pork have never used the drug, but until recently, the USDA did not allow them to mention this fact on labels. Because ractopamine is given to pigs in the weeks before slaughter, meat may contain residues.