The pigs in Lonely Mountain village drink only spring water. There are no doors on their pens so they can come and go as they please. They eat only seasonal organic vegetables. When I visited them recently, one was sunning herself in a patch of mud while her porcine mates foraged for wild foliage or inhaled mountain soil as part of their health regimen.
A little way down the hill, Lonely Mountain chickens were pecking at corn and wilted Chinese radishes as they contemplated a foray outside to nab some worms.
These fowl — fortunate enough to be raised in a remote part of the eastern province of Anhui — don’t take drugs to stay healthy. They aren’t fattened up at high speed and they breathe healthy Lonely Mountain air all day. Even the vegetables are lucky: they’re fertilised with waste from pigs and chickens rather than chemicals. Like the livestock, they are watered with spring water alone.