About 36% of all meat produced in the world is pork, which is the most popular meat in the world. It’s especially popular in East and Southeast Asia, Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, North America, South America, and Oceania.
No matter how you think about it, pigs are rather dirty animals. They’re considered the garbage and waste eliminators of the farm, often eating literally anything they can find. This includes not only bugs, insects, and any food scraps they find lying around, but also their own waste and the dead bodies of sick animals, even their own young.
Being aware of what a pig eats can help you understand why its meat might not taste very good. Being “grossed out” might or might not be a good reason not to eat something, but you should learn more about pork before making up your own mind.
Throughout history, certain cultures and religions have viewed the pig as an unclean animal and avoided pork consumption. But where does this perception of pigs and pork as dirty or impure come from? In this article, we’ll explore some of the historical stigmas around swine and whether modern science validates concerns over pork’s hygiene and health effects.
Ancient Stigmas Against Swine in Middle Eastern Societies
One of the earliest pork avoidances can be traced back to ancient Jewish law Passages in Leviticus and Deuteronomy declare the pig as unclean and prohibit pork consumption. But why were pigs seen as taboo in ancient Jewish and Middle Eastern culture?
Several theories have emerged. Pigs were perhaps first seen as dirty because they are omnivorous scavengers. Unlike grazing livestock like cattle sheep and goats, pigs will eat virtually anything they come across, including carrion, fecal matter, and other refuse. This willingness to consume waste was likely viewed as making the pig an unhygienic animal.
In hot Middle Eastern climates, letting pigs scavenge and consume rotting organic matter could also contribute to the spread of disease. Trichinosis, tapeworms, and other parasites can be transmitted from pigs to humans under primitive farming conditions. Avoiding pork may have helped limit infectious disease transmission in biblical times.
Some scholars also note that pigs compete for resources with humans. They require shady areas with mud to prevent overheating. Having large pig herds could destroy forests and contribute to ecosystem imbalance in the ancient Middle East. So cultural taboos against pork may have partly related to environmental conservation.
Modern Concerns Over Pork’s Safety
Are the ancient stigmas around pigs and pork consumption supported by modern science? There are still some legitimate concerns over hygiene and health effects.
Parasites
Undercooked or raw pork can transmit parasitic worms like trichinella spiralis, leading to the disease trichinosis. Infection can cause diarrhea, muscle pain, fever, and potentially even heart and breathing complications. However, trichinosis has become quite rare in developed nations through modern farming practices.
Bacterial Infections
Eating undercooked pork may also expose consumers to pathogenic bacteria like Yersinia enterocolitica and Clostridium difficile. These can cause foodborne illnesses producing digestive symptoms. Raw pork should always be handled and prepared properly to kill potential bacteria.
Hepatitis E
Hepatitis E is a virus typically transmitted through contaminated water in developing areas. But it can also spread through consumption of raw or undercooked pork. In rare cases, hepatitis E can lead to acute liver failure. However, this risk is minimal with properly prepared pork.
Toxoplasmosis
Toxoplasma gondii is a parasite carried by cats that can infect pigs through exposure to contaminated soil or feed. Humans can then contract toxoplasmosis by eating undercooked infected pork. While normally causing only mild flu-like symptoms in healthy adults, toxoplasmosis can seriously impact pregnant women and those with weakened immune systems.
Cancer Risk
There is some evidence linking high consumption of processed and red meat to increased cancer risk. Carcinogens like polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons can form in pork prepared at high temperatures. But despite these concerns, moderate fresh pork intake is unlikely to significantly impact cancer risk.
Evaluating the Relative Risks of Pork
While the above issues are legitimate, modern farming practices, regulations, and meat processing have dramatically reduced most risks associated with pork consumption in developed nations. Parasitic infections from eating pork are now extremely rare. And any raw meat, including beef and poultry, can potentially transmit bacterial pathogens if prepared incorrectly.
Cooking pork thoroughly until the internal temperature reaches 145°F kills any viruses, bacteria, or parasites present. Practicing diligent hygiene when handling and preparing pork also minimizes health hazards. So while certain stigmas remain around pigs as dirty animals, pork today can be safely consumed if properly cooked.
Most dietary guidelines accept fresh, lean pork in moderation as part of a balanced diet. Some data even suggest potential health benefits related to nutrients like protein, zinc, and vitamin B12 found in pork. And substituting pork for beef and lamb can reduce saturated fat intake.
Historic prohibitions against pork consumption centered on views of the pig as an unclean scavenger in ancient societies. Taboos in some religions reinforced pork avoidance for traditional and spiritual reasons. While raw pork does pose higher risks for certain pathogens and parasites compared to other meats, these concerns have abated in the modern era. Overall, pork from properly raised and slaughtered pigs, when cooked thoroughly, offers minimal health risks and remains widely accepted as safe to eat. With care taken in handling and preparation, pork can be incorporated into a healthy diet without major hygiene concerns.
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Unlike many other forms of livestock, pigs are omnivorous scavengers, eating virtually anything they come across, including carrion and refuse, which was deemed unclean. Furthermore, a Middle Eastern society keeping large stocks of pigs could destroy their ecosystem.
https://www.zmescience.com/feature-post/health/food-and-nutrition/why-pork-is-bad-for-you-17072020/
Frequency of Entities:
pigs – 11 times
pork – 24 times
ancient – 3 times
Middle Eastern – 2 times
unclean – 5 times
dirty – 1 time
taboo – 1 time
carcass/carrion – 2 times
refuse/waste – 2 times
scavengers – 2 times
omnivores – 1 time
ecosystem – 1 time
disease – 3 times
parasites – 3 times
trichinosis – 1 time
bacteria – 2 times
]
The Problems With Pork
There are several reasons why pig meat is more likely to contain toxins than meat from many other farm animals. The first reason has to do with the digestive system of a pig.
Animals and people both get rid of extra toxins and other parts of the food they eat that could be bad for their health during digestion. Because a pig’s digestive system works pretty simply, many of these toxins stay in its body and are stored in its plenty of fat until they are ready to be eaten.
Another issue with the pig is that it has very few functional sweat glands and can barely sweat at all. Sweat glands are a tool the body uses to be rid of toxins. This leaves more toxins in the pig’s body.
When you consume pork meat, you too get all these toxins that weren’t eliminated from the pig. For instance, there have been examples of pigs and pork products being contaminated with:
In fact, we should all do what we can to eliminate and cut down on toxin exposure. One vital way to do this is by choosing what you eat carefully.
According to the World Health Organization, processed meat like ham, bacon and sausage can cause cancer. The International Agency for Research on Cancer actually classifies processed meat as a carcinogen, something that causes cancer. A very large 18% increase in the risk of colorectal cancer was found in people who ate 50 grams of processed meat every day.
Processed meat is considered to be food items like ham, bacon, sausage, hot dogs and some deli meats. Noticing a theme there? Those are mainly pork-derived food products.
How much processed meat is 50 grams? That’s about four strips of bacon.
Maybe you’re thinking that you only eat two pieces of bacon regularly. According to this research, that would likely equate to a 9 percent increase of cancer likelihood.
People on the keto diet, the Paleo diet, and the Atkins diet, for example, often eat pork and processed meat, which is not good for them. Instead, they should use healthier meat, like beef, lamb, bison or chicken.
The swine flu is another virus that has made the leap from pig to human. The influenza virus can be passed directly from pigs to people, from people to pigs, and from people to people. Human infection with flu viruses from pigs are most likely when humans are physically close to infected pigs.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, H1N1 and H3N2 are swine flu viruses that are “endemic among pig populations in the United States and something that the industry deals with routinely.” Outbreaks can occur year-round. H1N1 has been observed in pig populations since at least 1930, while H3N2 began in the United States around 1998.
According to the CDC, eating properly handled and cooked pork has not been shown to spread swine flu to people. To properly prepare pork, it must be cooked to 160 degrees Fahrenheit, which is thought to kill all viruses and other pathogens that can be spread through food.
Did you know that pigs and their meat carry different kinds of parasites? Some of these parasites are hard to kill, even when the meat is cooked. This is the reason there are so many warnings out there about eating undercooked pork.
One of the biggest concerns with eating pork meat is trichinosis or trichinellosis. This is an infection that humans get from eating undercooked or uncooked pork that contains the larvae of the trichinella worm. In some countries and cultures, they actually consume pork raw.
This worm parasite is very commonly found in pork. The worm usually lives in cysts in the stomach. When stomach acids break open the cysts, the worm’s larvae enter the pig’s body. These new worms make their homes in the muscles of the pig.
Next stop? The unknowing human body that consumes this infected meat flesh.
Similarly to what these worms do to the pig, they can also do to humans. If you eat raw or undercooked pork that has the parasite on it, you are also eating trichinella larvae that are enclosed in a cyst.
Your digestive juices dissolve the cyst, but that only unleashes the parasite into your insides. The larvae then penetrate your small intestine, where they mature into adult worms and mate. If you’re at this stage of trichinosis, you may experience abdominal pain, diarrhea, fatigue, nausea and vomiting.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t end there. About a week after eating the pork that was infected, the adult female worms that are now inside you will make larvae that will enter your bloodstream and eventually burrow into muscle or other tissue. Once this tissue invasion occurs, symptoms of trichinosis include:
- Headache
- High fever
- General weakness
- Muscle pain and tenderness
- Pink eye (conjunctivitis)
- Sensitivity to light
- Swelling of the eyelids or face
People don’t want to eat worms, but trichinosis is a very dangerous disease that you should do almost anything to avoid. Symptoms in the abdomen can show up one to two days after infection, and other symptoms usually begin two to eight weeks after infection.
According to Mayo Clinic, the severity of symptoms typically depends on the number of larvae consumed in the infected meat.
The CDC says that to get rid of any worms, pork should be cooked all the way through and then frozen before cooking.
It’s actually been theorized that trichinellosis is the exact cause of Mozart’s rather sudden death at age 35. This is what an American researcher thought after looking at all the records from the days before, during, and after Mozart’s death.
This research published in Archives of Internal Medicine’s June 2001 issue found that Mozart suffered many of the above listed symptoms and that he recorded in his journal the consumption of pork just 44 days before his own death.
Pigs carry many viruses and parasites with them. Whether by coming in direct contact with them through farms or by eating their meat, we put ourselves at higher risk of getting one of these painful, often debilitating diseases (not to mention put our bodies on toxic overload).
- Taenia solium tapeworm
- Hepatitis E virus (HEV)—Some people in developed countries have gotten HEV genotype 3 after eating pork that wasn’t cooked all the way through.
- Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome, aka blue-ear pig disease
- Nipah virus
- Menangle virus
- Viruses in the family Paramyxoviridae
These parasites and viruses can all make you very sick and keep you sick for years to come.
It’s also important to know about the common conditions of pork raised for consumption. Today, a vast majority of pigs in the United States are raised in factory farms. This means that these pigs never live healthy lives of fresh air and wide-open pastures.
If you’re a pork eater, you should know that it’s very likely that you’re eating the meat of a pig that spent all of its time in a crowded warehouses with no fresh air or exercise, fed a steady diet of harmful drugs to keep the pig breathing as producers make pigs grow faster and fatter. These drugs often cause the pigs to become crippled under their own excessive and unnatural weight gain.
A group called PETA says that about 70% of factory-farmed pigs have pneumonia when they get to the slaughterhouse. Unsightly factory-farm conditions of filth and extreme overcrowding lead pigs to have an extreme likelihood for serious diseases. Because of how bad things are, the only way to keep these pigs alive is to sometimes abuse and overuse antibiotics.
Similarly to humans, pigs are more commonly developing diseases that are resistant to antibiotics. You might like the taste of pork, but would you want to eat something made from pork that came from a pig that had “superbacteria”?
The bacteria-laden pork story continues. A 2013 Consumer Reports analysis of U.S. pork chops and ground pork samples found widespread (69 percent) presence of a bacteria called yersinia enterocolitica. This bacterium infects about 100,000 Americans a year, especially children, and can cause fever, diarrhea and abdominal pain in humans.
Why Pork is bad for you? Religion and Science| CheapKnowledge
FAQ
Why does the Bible say not to eat pork?
Why is pork a bad meat?
Why shouldn’t we eat pork?
Why does pork have a bad reputation?
Why is pork considered dirty meat?
For instance, pigs are the primary hosts or carriers of viruses such as Menangle virus, Hepatitis E virus (HEV), and Nipah virus, as well as parasites like Taenia solium tapeworm and PRRS (Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome). Another reason why pork is considered dirty meat is due to its high toxicity level.
Is pork considered red meat?
Though you may have heard it called “the other white meat,” pork is considered red meat. It’s consumed worldwide, though it is against the laws of some religions — including Islam and Judaism — to eat pork. As a red meat, pork has a reputation for being unhealthy. However, it is a good source of certain nutrients, as well as high-quality protein.
Is pork a white meat?
“Pork is considered a red meat, and it is high levels of saturated fat, and all of the other animal protein compounds that are deleterious to health. Pork is not a “white meat”, and even if it were, white meat has also been demonstrated to be deleterious to health,” Hunnes told ZME Science. Is pork bad for you?
Is pork bad for You?
The main (but not the only) reason why pork is bad for you is its high content of saturated fats and cholesterol. However, as is often the case with nutrition, the scientific studies are not always clear-cut, and dietary recommendations tend to be laxer than existing evidence. Pigs were domesticated in Mesopotamia, around 15,000 years ago.