#While others are more widespread (Don't piss off the gods or they'll fuck up your village with lightning)

[gxlden-angels]

Hey, I just saw your most recent post and am curious about the irrelevant part - what do you mean by the ''religions abstaining from pork because it was unsafe to eat at the time'' thing? I've never heard that before and I am genuinely intrigued to know about it.

Hi !! There's a lot of religious rituals and rules that people continue today out of tradition and respect that were started (or thought to have been started) for safety/health reasons, with one big one being how meat can be handled and what meat is safe to consume! Pork is the main one that I know of since I have some friends that keep kosher or only eat halal meats

Essentially, pigs are honestly pretty gross animals if you let them be. They're opportunistic omnivores, so they'll essentially eat whatever they can get their teeth on. That includes rotting/spoiled food, fecal matter, and even people if they sit still long enough. Pigs can also carry some gnarly diseases that can easily be passed on to people. It's why you'll often hear people refer to them as "unclean" in both a religious and hygienic sense, despite their cleanliness on the outside. You might not know what Trichinella parasites are, but if your cousin shits himself to death after eating porkchops, you're gonna assume that's a sign from someone above not to eat anymore pigs

We now have modern medicine, biologists, food scientists, meat storage/serving regulations, etc. etc. that have made the risk of catching anything from pork less than minimal as long as you store and cook it properly and there hasn't been a new outbreak of something. A lot of people keep the tradition out of respect for their ancestors/culture. A lot of people also keep it because they know that pigs are still kinda gross, even with modern interventions. I've met people that no longer follow pig-based rules at all, while others adjust it so they're only eating pork if they know where it came from and what that pig ate from birth to bacon

Basically, eating a pig before the creation of antibiotics and vaccines was the peak form of fucking around and finding out. Whether you found out because of salmonella or the wrath of every deity out there (or both!) is up to you