Slow Cooker Apple Cider Barbecue Pulled Pork {and a Pork Tour recap}

Check out my unique inside look at pork farming along with this Slow Cooker Apple Cider Barbecue Pulled Pork recipe.

It’s the kind of meal you look forward to coming home to after a long day at work.

This post is in partnership with the National Pork Board.

Since I started blogging I have become more and more passionate about farming in our country.

After visiting beef and dairy farms and seeing the tremendous amount of hours, sweat and emotions that go into running a farm I can tell you it’s not for the faint of heart.

It takes years of dedication, long hours, true commitment and love of the land and animals. Otherwise, they would never stay in the agriculture business.

I recently had the unique opportunity to travel to Minnesota and visit a family-owned pork farm, Wakefield Pork.

This was my first experience on a pork farm. However, I saw the same kind of dedication and commitment from these farmers as I had with every farm I have visited.

This tour gave me great insight into another area of agriculture, an area I knew little about.

I saw firsthand what is involved in the day-to-day operations of pork production including a farrowing and nursery farm along with a finishing farm.

Insight into Pig Farming

For those unfamiliar with these terms:

• Farrowing is where pigs are inseminated and give birth.
• The nursery is where baby piglets stay for about 8 weeks.
• The finishing farm is where pigs are sent to gain weight and live until they are sent to a processing plant. 

I can’t tell you how seriously they take infections, diseases and care of the animals. It’s quite involved.

Over the years pig farmers realized they could prevent much of the illnesses if they kept the different stages of pigs separate.

This has helped so much in the health of pigs and production.

We spent most of our first day visiting a farrowing farm, part of the Wakefield Pork farm.

Although there weren’t any sows giving birth at the time of our visit, we had plenty of opportunities to visit with piglets who were less than a day old.

The finishing farm we visited also focuses on preventing illnesses from being passed on to the pigs. Hence, the attractive hazmat-looking suits we wore.

Fun Facts About Pigs and the Pork Industry 

• Pregnant pigs can have litters between 1 and 25 piglets but average around 15 piglets.
• Adult pigs eat approximately 1 ton of food per year.
• New standards and pork farming practices have reduced the carbon footprint by 35% while using 40% less water and 80% less land (stats from between 1959-2009).
• Pork contains NO antibiotics when it gets to the packaging plant which means there are NO antibiotics in the pork that makes it into the food chain.

And I couldn’t leave you without an amazing slow cooker recipe.

I love slow cooker recipes, especially when there is little prep involved like this Slow Cooker Apple Cider Barbecue Pulled Pork.

I typically like to serve it with coleslaw as a side dish like this Tangy Honey Coleslaw.

or Pineapple Coleslaw.

Dietitian’s Dish

Pork tenderloin is one of the leanest pork cuts you can enjoy.

To learn more about various pork cuts and what “lean” pork actually means, check out this post.

In that post, you’ll also see another delicious pork recipe, an Easy Skillet Pork Stroganoff.

When it comes to the barbecue sauce, feel free to use less or more if desired.

Just keep in mind that it has added sugar, so less is better. In my opinion, this recipe is pretty sweet as written since it includes brown sugar and apple cider too.

Disclaimer: This post is sponsored by the National Pork Board, National Pork Producers Council and Minnesota Pork Board. I was compensated for my time but my views and opinions on this post are and will always be my own.

This Slow Cooker Apple Cider Barbecue Pulled Pork {and Pass the Pork Tour recap} post first appeared on Chocolate Slopes.

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