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This parasite can be eradicated worldwide. We need pigs to be penned where they cannot eat human feces - its that simple. Not simple at all. A trip outside the
by onetimeuse001 14y ago
This parasite can be eradicated worldwide. We need pigs to be penned where they cannot eat human feces - its that simple.
Not simple at all. A trip outside the first world will tell you that raising pigs is not as easy as you make it. Not every family has land and resources avail to raise pigs as you said it.
- SlipperySlope 14y agoPerhaps the goal is simply stated, but the solutions are complex. The main resource lacking is education about proper pig husbandry. See: http://cnia.inta.gov.ar/helminto/A%20Cisticercosis/Improving%20pig%20husbandry%20in%20tropical%20resour.pdf http://cnia.inta.gov.ar/helminto/A%20Cisticercosis/Improving...
- johnchristopher 14y agoMoreoever pigs are in direct competition with humans for food. That's almost certaily why ancestral middle-eastern tribes had taboo on raising pigs and favoured goose and cows that feed on herbs (humans and pigs can't digest grass wich is based on azot).
- SlipperySlope 14y agoAgree with your premise, but fault the probability of your conclusion due to the written record left by Hebrew scholars who described pigs as "unclean". Its easy to see how an animal that eats human feces could be viewed that way.
- onetimeuse001 14y agoTheir ability to eat everything is actually an asset, they're relatively easy to raise. Cows and sheep not so. Any health issues are seen as a cost of doing business, after all they are a million ways to get sick and die in the third world.
- johnchristopher 14y ago> Its easy to see how an animal that eats human feces could be viewed that way. Not necessarily that easy. For example, they didn't think farmyard manure was unclean but nonetheless used it to grow vegetables. My intuition is that it's easier to remember pig as "filthy", "unclean", "kosher", "forbidden" than their place in a complex and ever moving ecological system. Written record left by scholars could be deductions made about the current state of things and its lost meanings (that's actually part of my intuition).
- batista 14y agoChickens eat human feces too, but they are not considered "unclean". Plus, the one doesn't exclude the other. The taboo could be because of the reasons the parent mentioned, and the "unclean due to eating feces" could just be a post-fact rationalisation of it.
- vectorbunny 14y ago> Its easy to see how an animal that eats human feces could be viewed that way. Pigs were considered unclean more for their consumption of human flesh than for their consumption of human feces. Geological conditions in the Levant meant that bodies were typically interred in crypts or caves rather that being buried 'six feet under' where the decomposition couldn't be smelled by scavengers.
- Spooky23 14y agoNot really -- pigs are really useful for cultivating land. You pen them in an area and they turn over the soil when they go "rooting" (foraging for roots and bugs). Historically, pigs are a recycling engine as well. You set them loose on garbage pile and they eat all sorts of stuff, producing rich fertilizer in return. This stuff all originates from the ancient Egyptian practices, and the reasoning for the taboos aren't precisely known. I always thought they had more to do with the people who kept the pigs -- who were (and still are today in Egypt) non-Muslim/Jews who are associated with garbage.