Enviro-pigs photographed Nov 12, 2010 at the University of Guelph Arkell Research Farm Swine Unit. Global food means massive scale for pig farms and massive amounts of pig pooh. Now, a genetically modified pig being developed in Guelph has been given the go ahead by federal regulators. The pig's pooh is more environmentally friendly but it is testing the limits of genetically modified food. (Moe Doiron/The Globe and Mail)

Story details: The transgenic creations of university researchers, they are the world's most controversial environmentally sensitive swine, and they're not legally fit to eat. At least, not yet. Starting with the discovery that an E.coli gene could produce a digestive enzyme that regular pigs lack, the Guelph scientists realized they could introduce genetic material from that bacterium into pigs to minimize the environmental impact of the animals' waste, reducing a major pollutant from large-scale production ? and allowing pork producers to cut operation costs.