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Farm-Scape, Episode 2262

A Perth County pork producer is confident functional foods, such as the selenium enriched pork being marketed in southwestern Ontario, are the way of the future.

Perth Pork Products Ltd., located near Stratford, Ontario and operated by Fred and Ingrid de Martines and their four children, markets a selenium enriched pork.

Selenium is recognized as an antioxidant which helps reduce the risk of cancer and heart disease and it also plays a role in the function of the body's immune system.

Fred de Martines notes the increased selenium content in the pork his farm produces is achieved through the use of dietary supplements.

"It's a corn, soybean meal based ration and then we've added an organic selenium yeast and we feed it to the pigs.

Because it's a an organic selenium yeast the pigs actually put that selenium in the muscle, not in the fat but more in the muscle.

Through testing, before and after, the tests were done at the university of Prince Edward Island so it's an independent party.

It was determined that we increased the selenium content by 63.6 percent so it's much higher than your regular pork would be."

De Martines notes, in addition to being an excellent source of selenium in the diet the drip loss of the carcasses is less because the selenium holds the moisture better and it'll also provide pork that's just a little more moist.

He's convinced functional foods are the way of the future.

He believes, as people become more and more concerned about their health, food is going to have to do more than just be very nourishing and taste well, it will also have to have a medicinal component to it.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.