Why do some cultures forbid the eating of pork?

Answer 1

Because there are several parasites commonly known to inhabit the flesh of pigs which can cause illness or even death (the most common one is trichinosis).

In ancient times, when there were no steps which could be taken to prevent your livestock from being infected by such parasites, and no way for you to tell if your meat was adequately cooked or not, humans falling ill, and sometimes even dying, from these parasites was quite a problem.

As a result of this, dietary restrictions were written to forbid people from eating the flesh of pigs in order to avoid the whole problem of becoming infected yourself by simply not eating the animal.

Like all rules of this type, especially when written into a religious text (eating pork is forbidden both in the Jewish Torah-- which is also the Old Testament of the Bible-- and the Koran), it became a tradition, and the simple fact it was written down became the justification for the proscription... which is why pork is still forbidden in many cultures, even though we have developed methods to keep pigs parasite free and now have the ability to consistently cook the meat so it's safe to consume.

For those wondering, though, the reason Christians do not generally adhere to the rule is there is a passage in the New Testament (Acts 11: 4-10), in which Peter rescinds the proscription in the following manner:

"Peter began and explained everything to them precisely as it had happened: 'I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. I saw something like a large sheet being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came down to where I was. I looked into it and saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, reptiles, and birds of the air. Then I heard a voice telling me, 'Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.'

I replied, 'Surely not, Lord! Nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.'

The voice spoke from heaven a second time, 'Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.' This happened three times, and then it was all pulled up to heaven again."

Answer 2

Actually some religions forbid pork, Muslims do not eat pork as it is a unclean animal. In the bible it also says you should not eat swine, but I don't think many people follow this rule from the bible. Pigs are one of the animals that will eat anything you put infront of them which makes them a gross animal to eat.

Answer 3

most food prohibitions were based on what was perceived to be healthy for the body. The idea being that a body is a temple and must be cared for in the best way ..

Cooking methods in ancient time allowed for lots of cross contamination of food, and microorganism growth, and pigs people noticed that more people got sick from eating pig , and pig products. So it was considered an unclean animal and thus banned.. again the idea being .. healthy worshippers.

scientific research has confirmed that most things that were biblically considered unhealthy, are in fact unhealthy.

I don't subscribe to most of the dogma in the bible/Q'aran/talmud etc. but I have found that most of the ideas about food are in fact true..

Answer 4

Pigs are direct competitors to humans because they also eat a lot of energy-containing foods, not only grass like cattle or sheep. To have too many pigs, could have caused a shortage of wheat (asf.) for people.

And pork gets bad quickly if not cooled - so the regulation was to prevent illnesses.

Answer 5

The bible forbids pork as an unclean animal, more specifically the old testament

Answer 6

Because in some cultures the pig is consider to be a filthy animal diseased like in the bible. Pig eat anything. Like shell fish is the same.

Answer 7

on the time and position at the same time as those guidelines were written the pig replaced right into a grimy animal. Pigs do not sweat to keep cool. In a dry, warm, area like the middle east, the purely way they could be able to relax themselves is through rolling of their own excrement. In modern-day farms pigs have water to relax themselves so that they stay faraway from their excrement. modern-day pigs are clean (and scrumptious) yet Islam and Judaism opt to stay in the previous. people in those religions ought to abide from delivery. With Hindus that's crimson meat. awaken people, non secular suggestions like this do no longer come from you gods.

Answer 8

Pork was very unhealthy to eat because of diseases. Now we can raise pork without these diseases. The Jews and the Moselms made it part of their religion not to eat pork for health reasons.

Answer 9

Pigs had parasites, and there was no refrigeration back then. These two factors caused the consumtion of swine flesh to make people sick. Therefore, God put it in the Scriptures (OT, Qur'an) for these people not to eat pork. It was for their own protection.

As for a pig being unclean, it eats its own doo-doo.

Today pigs are raised without trichenosis (spelling?). I wonder if it still eats its own doo-doo? (being sarcastic)

Answer 10

Between the fact that pigs are unclean and have a cloven hoof, there is usually an ancient prohibiton against meat because of an inability to keep it without it spoiling.