Pigs: Not Very Good in Minecraft

Choose your fighter! (Corny joke, I know.)

Note that I do not hate pigs in either Minecraft or real life. I think they're really cute. And I know how significant Reuben is to some players of Minecraft: Story Mode...though I wish he had more heroic moments.

I was about to call pigs the "worst" animal in Minecraft, but there are way worse animals out there like bats which literally drop nothing.

Food is undoubtedly a high priority in Minecraft, and animals are common and viable sources of food. They'll often be the player's first food source because wheat takes time to grow and apples take a bit of luck to get. Steak and cooked porkchop, in particular, are very popular because they restore 8 hunger points compared to bread's 5 and the apple's 4.

Animals are not just useful for food, however. They also provide several other items or uses besides being killed for meat. Cows drop leather and can be milked, sheep can be sheared for wool, and chickens regularly lay eggs.
And the pig is no exception. Besides dropping porkchop, it can be ridden if the player has a saddle and a carrot on a stick.
But I'm gonna tell you why, despite these abilities, the pig is not as good as other animals in Minecraft.

First off, pigs drop nothing but porkchop on death. This wouldn't be so bad if they were more common or dropped more meat than cows, but both pigs and cows are equally rare and drop the exact same number of meat: 1-3 per kill.

Second, horses only need a saddle and a little bit of "befriending time" to be rideable. Pigs need a saddle and a carrot on a stick, which requires a steady supply of carrots and can take up inventory space.
Pigs travel at 5.20 m/s, while horses can travel from 4.8375 to a whopping 14.5125 m/s. In most circumstances, a horse will move faster than a pig.

Third, speaking of carrots, pigs breed when given carrots. Carrots rarely drop from zombies and villages aren't always easy to find, unlike wheat seeds which can be found anywhere on the surfaces of most biomes.
Breeding a cow or chicken is much easier and more rewarding.

Fourth and not so significant because I'm out of ideas, a pig struck by lightning turns into a zombie pigman, unlike the other farm animals.
If the player only has at most 2 pigs and is unlucky, this would ruin the opportunity to make a pig farm.
But even farms with a lot of pigs can be affected. If the player accidentally hits a zombie pigman while killing pigs in a farm, the player would be in huge trouble as zombie pigmen are fast and powerful.

So, in conclusion, prioritize getting cows, chickens, sheep, and horses because of their amazing usefulness. Don't focus on pigs unless there are no other animals.

And I think I'm notorious now for injecting Hytale into non-Hytale blog posts, so here we go.
Hopefully Hytale will have balanced-out food, especially in combat situations. Minecraft 1.8 is notorious for making the player go hungry way too quickly.