4 ms·
On the topic of pigs and pork I enjoyed this recent Adam Ragusea video about why we don't have a good explanation for decrees against eating pork: https://www.
by hnick 6y ago
On the topic of pigs and pork I enjoyed this recent Adam Ragusea video about why we don't have a good explanation for decrees against eating pork:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sew4rctKghY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sew4rctKghY
Like most of his work he tries to research and source everything he says.
I can't recall if it was in the video or a comment, but one idea is that chickens just do it better. They convert garbage to food (and eggs!) more quickly and efficiently. You can eat one chicken but can't eat a similar sized part of a pig, which is important before refrigeration. They don't make lard which was a major use of pigs (apparently they were often grown fat on purpose for lard, not meat) but warmer climes had access to and preferred olive oil anyway, since it kept better.
- ars 6y agoHe doesn't analyze why Rabbit is also prohibited by the Torah. All his theories for why Pig is prohibited should also be compared to rabbits. (They are dirty, or compete with humans for food, or small so you can eat the whole thing.) Yet, they aren't. His final conclusion: There is no reason, is probably the right one. Jews don't eat pig, or rabbit, because God said not to, and that's about it.
- rom16384 6y ago"Protein poisoning (also referred to colloquially as rabbit starvation, mal de caribou, or fat starvation) refers to an unverified acute form of malnutrition that some have speculated may be caused by a diet deficient in fat, where excessive lean meat is consumed", from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_starvation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_starvation
- kergonath 6y agoThis sounds like confirmation bias, though (you can find a reason not to eat anything if you look closely enough). It is also highly speculative. I think from an ethnographic point of view, cultural reasons are perfectly plausible, in the same way some people now refuse to eat horse, veal, or indeed rabbit.
- qPM9l3XJrF 6y agoPerhaps God's prophet was a chicken farmer.
- jfengel 6y agoThat's almost certainly correct. Another way to view it is as a matter of community: "We are the people who don't eat X (or wear X, or do X)". Much as Americans view people who eat dogs as repulsive, having a set of proscribed behaviors defines who you're not and thus who you are. When it comes to eating dog, the prohibition feels nearly as strong as if it came from God. It would take only a little nudge for somebody's existing dietary preferences to become scripture. That preference might have had some other kind of more immediate necessity as well, but a lot of such cultural dictates are either arbitrary or become arbitrary as circumstances change. That just makes the cultural marker even more imperative. It would be easy to avoid pigs, say, if they were actually bad for you. Avoiding them even when everybody else is consuming them successfully shows a real determination.
- hnick 6y agoThe cultural angle is covered near the end of the video (around 11 minutes). Apparently there is some evidence northern Israelites were still eating pork and the rules became a way to bind everyone together culturally, though like all other reasons there's no hard evidence.