Smarter than your average toddler, adaptable and often cunning, pigs have long fascinated –and frustrated– those who study and raise these corpulent creatures. But for millions of pigs raised to satisfy Americans’ taste for the “other white meat,” life begins and ends in overcrowded holding pens built over manure lagoons at factory farms. In his new book, Barry Estabrook, a food writer best known for exposing abuses in the food industry, explores the lives of these wily creatures — from dense backwoods to industrial slaughterhouses — and their impact on people and their palates. Kojo talks with Estabrook about the realities behind our taste for pork, and how sustainably raised swine could change the “Big Pig” industry.