Why do Chinese people love pork so much?
China is known for its astounding appetite for pork.
The country remains the world's largest pork producer and consumer, according to a report by the USDA foreign agricultural service.
A total of 55 million tonnes of pork was consumed in the country last year, which is equivalent to about 30.8kg of pork per person, according to data released by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Piglets drink milk from a sow at Guangxi Yangxiang's pig farm in Yaji Mountain Forest Park, Guangxi province. A total of 55 million tonnes of pork was produced in 2016
To put it in scale, China consumes almost half of all pork produced globally each year.
The country produces 500 million swine per year, according to the Economist.
Since China began opening up to the world in the late 1970s, pork demand expanded by an average 5.7 per cent every year, until 2014 as the booming economy allowed hundreds of millions of people to afford to eat meat more often, according to Reuters.
Hongshao rou (pictured), a braised pork belly dish was China's founding father Mao Zedong's favourite dish
The country's founding father Mao Zedong's favourite dish was hongshao rou, a braised pork belly dish.
Traditionally raised in backyard pig pens, Chinese farmers would feed the hogs with almost anything.
According to Forbes, pigs served as a low-tech garbage disposal, gobbling up left over scraps and in return supplying manure and meat for the farm.
The Chinese character for home, jia (家), even depicts a (stylised) pig under a roof - apparently, it is considered that a house wasn't a home without one.
The meat produced is also proven to be a versatile cooking ingredient and can stand as a delicious entree on its own or add rich flavour to soups and vegetable dishes.
Read articles that feature this panel
African swine fever virus is found in DUMPLINGS brought by a Chinese tourist to Japan as the deadly disease sweeps through global pig...
The virus was found last month in the luggage belonging to a Chinese traveller at Tokyo Haneda Airport. Cases of African swine fever have...
Bringing back the bacon: Chinese farms use facial recognition technology on PIGS to help boost the animals' productivity as the country...
The artificial intelligence system helps farmers keep a 'file' on each hog's life cycle, documenting each stage from its birth to death,...
Inside China's million-pound 'hog hotel': Farmers keep 1,000 pigs per floor in buildings as tall as seven storeys to produce the nation's...
Agricultural company Guangxi Yangxiang Co Ltd is running two seven-floor sow breeding operations in southern China, and is putting up four...
China culls 200,000 pigs following outbreaks of highly contagious African swine flu across 27 cities
China, the world's top pork producer, has culled 200,000 pigs so far following outbreaks of highly ontagious African swine fever in the...
Most watched News videos
- New video shows Epstein laughing and chasing young women
- British Airways passengers turn flight into a church service
- Epstein describes himself as a 'tier one' sexual predator
- Skier dressed as Chewbacca brutally beaten in mass brawl
- Two schoolboys plummet out the window of a moving bus
- Buddhist monks in Thailand caught with a stash of porn
- Melinda Gates says Bill Gates must answer questions about Epstein
- Police dog catches bag thief who pushed woman to the floor
- Holly Valance is shut down by GB News for using slur
- Sarah Ferguson 'took Princesses' to see Epstein after prison
- JD Vance turns up heat on Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor
- China unveils 'Star Wars' warship that can deploy unmanned jets
