Are you sick a lot, or do you have serious mood swings? Eating pork could be the reason.
What about pork and good health? To mention that pork might not be good to eat, is fighting words to many people. So, I am asking you to extend to me a little Christian love and mercy as I attempt to make the case for avoiding pork products. I think you will live longer and have healthier lives if you avoid pork. Yes, I know it tastes great, but, human experience, science and God’s word, may prove it is not worth the risk. So let’s take a look at all three of these.
Human experience Most Christians, and most Americans, believe they can eat whatever they want. Jews believe it is not good to eat pork. In Israel, Jews and non Jews tend to avoid pork. Is there any proof that avoiding pork products, is a healthier practice than eating a lot of pork, like Americans? According to a report by Jerusalem’s Taub Center for Social Policy Studies, Israeli life expectancy at birth is 81 years compared to 78 years for Americans.1 That one fact, that non pork eating Jews, tend to live longer than pork eating Americans, may not be conclusive but if it is connected to some actual science then it may be a factor.
Science When we share with people that eating pork is unhealthy, we are informed that we obviously aren’t up to date on the latest information about pork consumption. Evidently, everyone knows that with our modern technology in food processing and cooking, all ill effects of eating pork have been eliminated, or are they?
In the January 2013 edition of Consumer Reports a different story was told. Consumer Reports stated:
“Our analysis of pork-chop and ground-pork samples from around the U.S. found that Yersinia enterocolitica, a bacterium that can cause fever, diarrhea, and abdominal pain, was widespread. Some samples harbored other potentially harmful bacteria, including salmonella. And there are more reasons to be concerned about “the other white meat”.
Some of the bacteria we found in 198 samples proved to be resistant to antibiotics commonly used to treat people. The frequent use of low-dose antibiotics in pork farming may be accelerating growth of drug-resistant “superbugs” that threaten human health.
About one-fifth of the 240 pork products we analyzed in a separate test harbored low levels of the drug ractopamine, which the U.S. approved in 1999 to promote growth and leanness in pigs. It’s commonly used in pigs raised for food in the U.S. but is banned in the European Union, China and Taiwan.
Yersinia enterocolitica was found in 69% of the tested pork samples. It infects about 100,000 Americans a year, especially children. We found salmonella, staphylococcus aureus, or listeria monocytogenes, in 3 to 7 percent of samples.
Thirteen of the fourteen staphylococcus samples we isolated from pork were resistant to one or more antibiotics, so were six of eight salmonella samples, 12 of 19 enterococcus samples, and 121 of 132 yersinia samples. One sample was identified as MRSA, a drug-resistant and sometimes fatal staph.”2
Why are all those disease causing bacteria in pork products? Factory-farmers gobble up 80 percent of the antibiotics sold in the U.S. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated that 67 percent of human diseases are of animal origin, and according to Robert Martin, director of food system policy at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, “there are a number of specific studies that have linked antibiotics in animals to drug-resistant human infections,”3
What about pork products from other countries? Food from other countries can carry even more health risks. Check out these two YouTube videos. One shows parasites in uncooked pork and the other shows cooked pork that was reheated in a microwave. Evidently these parasites are really tough.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqPERDo9kWg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFF6qiLwZMU
Eating Pork can affect your moods and cause migraines.
The processing aids used in the most popular cuts of pork—ham, sausage, bratwursts, and the like—cause depression. “Sugar, salt, and nitrate preservatives used in these products can trigger low moods, migraines, and even swollen ankles,” writes Drew Ramsey, MD, coauthor of The Happiness Diet.3
According to Consumer Reports, Johns Hopkins and MD Drew Ramsey, Pork products, not only contain disease strains that are resistant to antibiotics, they also contain hormones, preservatives and sugar, that are making Americans sick and depressed, especially children.
God’s Word, what does it say about eating pork?
Leviticus 11:4-8 4 Nevertheless these you shall not eat among those that chew the cud or those that have cloven hooves: the camel, because it chews the cud but does not have cloven hooves, is unclean to you; 5 the rock hyrax, because it chews the cud but does not have cloven hooves, is unclean to you; 6 the rabbit, because it chews the cud but does not have cloven hooves, is unclean to you; 7 and the pig, though it divides the hoof, having cloven hooves, yet does not chew the cud, is unclean to you.8 Their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall not touch. They are unclean to you.
Isaiah 62:2,4b,5b “All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people who walk in ways not good…Who eat the flesh of pigs and whose pots hold broth of unclean meat; Such people are smoke in my nostrils”
Leviticus 11:4-8 talks about white meat (pig, rabbit, horse, dog, cat, rat). God said these animals are not to be eaten. Can you eat them? Sure, you can eat anything you want. Paul said in…
1 Corinthians 6:12 6:12 “Everything is permissible but not everything is beneficial…but I will not be mastered by anything. Food for the stomach and the stomach for food.”
Unclean food won’t spiritually defile you, it will just shorten your life. It’s not a sin to eat pork, it’s just not physically beneficial. Jesus said what comes out of our mouth, spiritually defiles us, not what goes in our mouths.
Many people think, that because old testament rules about food do not apply to us spiritually anymore, that they also don’t apply to us physically. Let’s just think about that for a second. The old testament says that seagulls are not good for you and that cats and dogs are not good food. Do we really believe that since Jesus died on the cross that all of a sudden those animals became healthy to eat? I live on the coast of Oregon and the thought of eating a seagull would make most of my friends sick to their stomachs.
I have been traveling to third world countries, two and three times a year for over twenty years. Many of my missionary friends ignore God’s advice concerning pork and other foods. They eat pork and shellfish and; they almost always get sick and I don’t. God did not make his laws just to see if we would be obedient, he made them to keep us out of harm’s way.
The animals in Leviticus 11:1-3 (red meat animals, those with a split hoof and chew the cud) have a four-stomach digestive system designed to convert vegetation into protein, calcium, etc. These animals are not as likely to carry diseases that affect humans. The animals that God said not to eat have a single stomach digestive system very similar to ours, which also makes them susceptible to almost all the parasites and diseases that we are plagued with.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), between November 2002 and July 2003, an outbreak of SARS in southern China caused 774 deaths reported in 37 countries. The epidemic has a 9.6% fatality rate. The epidemic was found to be related to the eating of cats, a white meat animal like pigs, the bible says not to eat. Obeying God’s advice concerning white meat would have spared these unfortunate people a lot of pain, suffering and lives cut short.
To say that modern science has eliminated the need to avoid pork products is to ignore the facts, and, put yourself and your family at risk. God’s advice is timeless and valuable. Before we had scientists who could look through powerful microscopes and see disease producing bacteria, God knew what food carried sickness and death and warned us not to eat it.
In our blog about red meat, we shared a study done in Colorado concerning people who lived to be over 100 years old.
+In that study they found only one thing that all centenarians had in common. They all ate red meat, the meat God said was good to eat, twice a day, not white meat, that God said not to eat. If you want to live out your full lifespan you will have to eat red meat like the Bible recommends and avoid white meat. Happy eating!!!
GOD CREATED MAN. GOD CREATED FOOD.
GOD KNOWS WHAT FOOD HE CREATED FOR MAN TO ENJOY,
GOD KNOWS WHAT FOOD WAS NOT FOR MAN TO ENJOY, AND
HE HAS NEVER TRIED TO KEEP IT A SECRET.
If you believe God knows best, join us and the Wellness Gospel team and spread the word, share this with your friends on social media and may God bless you richly.
If you want to keep improving your health and like this kind of biblical, scientific information, then I would like to recommend three must-read books.
- “None of These Diseases” by S. I. McMillen, M.D. and David E. Stern, M.D.
- “Let’s Play Doctor” by Dr. Joel Wallach
- “God’s Guide To Biblical Health and Healing” by Rev. Chris & Shary Schauermann
You can get all these books at Amazon.com
- Israelis Have Longer Life Expectancy than Americans, Jewish News, www.worldjewishdaily.com/longevity.p
- January 2013 edition of Consumer Reports/pork consumption
- http://www.rodalesorganiclife.com/wellbeing/10-scary-reasons-why-you-should-never-buy-conventional-pork
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqPERDo9kWg
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFF6qiLwZMU