Jamie Oliver is highlighting bad pig farming on TV, while the industry appears to create confusion with labelling

In a field in Berwickshire, our family pig is rooting around in the mud with his brothers. He's more than a year old now, approaching 90 kilos, and in a few weeks we'll kill and butcher him. It is perhaps the most exciting food project I've ever undertaken: my bedside reading at the moment is an encyclopedia of charcuterie.

The pig lodges with Chris and Denise Walton organic farmers who produce some of the best pork and veal in Scotland. They make great salami and a fantastic pancetta bacon: there are endless interesting possibilities. But the most important detail of all is that when we eat him, we'll know we're eating a pig that led as decent and natural a life as is possible. And that will taste good.

There are many ways of getting pork that is produced without undue cruelty to pigs, and very few excuses left for not doing so. Anyone who watched Jamie Saves Our Bacon, Jamie Oliver's Channel 4 programme on the pig industry last night, now knows the basics - buy British (because our welfare standards are much higher than European ones), check the label, pay a reasonable amount for your bacon. Owning your own pig isn't so hard. Some traditional and organic pig farms are setting up club systems so urbanites such as me can get into remote pig ownership; it is not expensive.

The Times 30/1/09