ABSTRACT
'The pig is a very flexible animal' 1 wrote Frederik Oehlerich, one of the many experts who published production manuals aimed at Danish pig farmers around the turn of the nineteenth century. This understanding of the pig, which prevailed among all leading experts of the time, made dramatic changes possible in the Danish pork industry from 1887 onwards. Flexibility became the key to the international success of Danish pork as both the body of the pig and the system of production could be modified and quickly adjusted to changing markets and demands. The faith in flexibility as well as technological advances ensured that modifications of the pig were intensified continuously over the twentieth century. Intensive breeding programmes were set up which rapidly altered the body proportions of Danish pigs. Hence the pig of the 1960s looked significantly different from that of the 1880s. The hypothesis of this chapter is that the industrialization of Danish pork production from 1887 onwards changed not only the appearance of the pigs but also the nutritional content and composition of the meat. The aim is to investigate how the composition of pork changed between 1887 and 1960, and thus to gain new insights into the nutritional implications of the industrialization of food production in the twentieth century.
