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Comment by dawnerd | Hacker News Reader

What's wrong with refusing to eat one type of meat? I don't eat fish for the same reasons.

I'm not taking a side here. I eat all meats. That said, Jews had a lower susception to plague because they avoided pork. Of course, this was inferred as evidence that they caused plague.

From what I'm aware, that was largely attributed to regular bathing in the mikveh (ritual bath), rather than diet.

That undoubtedly had something to do it, but it's also a fact that pigs, in particular, are prone to many diseases that can be transmitted to humans (there are some with cows too, of course, but not nearly as many).

Same thing with shellfish (also forbidden by Kosher rules). Not only do they tend to collect nasty bugs from any human sewage in the water, but they have some truly scary toxins in their own right.

None of those are an issue with modern farming and aquaculture, though.

What probably happened was that a whole village got wiped out with (say) Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning, and the priest from the next village decided that God really, really didn't want people eating oysters any more.

Diversity is good, seems our digestions evolved with the ability and perhaps even requirement to eat a lot of different things.. Mix it up a bit? Venison is a far superior meat to beef in my book however Ive never tried panda or zebra but I would.

Why don't you eat fish? I can't work it out :)

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