Learning What Animals & Seafood NOT to Eat Is a Key to Good Nutrition and Eating Healthy

Okay, my friends, today I'm going to talk about what "foods" you should avoid. I hope that I don't lose your friendship today or your faithful readership because I'm going to be talking about some foods that you probably love and can't imagine living without. Nonetheless, I am compelled to share the truth with you, in love, because I believe that knowing the truth will set you free from a whole host of physical health problems that have been causing you to be predisposed to ill-health.

One of the KEYS to good nutrition and eating healthy is to learn what NOT to eat. Simply put, knowing what not to eat is just as important as knowing what to eat. I'm going to begin by discussing what animals, fish, and birds we should avoid eating. What I am going to share with you comes from two valuable sources. First, I would like to reference the Bible and what God says about what not to eat. Secondly, I will reference what history, science and research has taught us about what not to eat. Believe it or not, they actually agree.

First, I want to share about the Creator's dietary guidelines as found in the Bible. Doesn't it make sense that after God created man He would teach him how to nourish himself according to healthy dietary instructions? These dietary guidelines are not some form of outdated legalism from Judaism, but rather they were given by a loving Creator to save His people from physical devastation long before modern scientific principles of bacterial infection, hygiene, viral transmission, or molecular cell physiology were understood. In the same way that the moral guidelines preserved the culture of Israel, so these dietary guidelines preserved and protected their physical health.

In the Garden of Eden, God gave mankind every seed-bearing plant and every tree that has fruit with seed in it to be his food (Genesis 1:29). We learn from this that man's first diet was vegetarian and consisted of a combination of fruits, vegetables, greens, seeds, nuts, herbs, lentils, and whole grains. However, after man's fall things started to change. Eventually, God prescribed a broader diet for mankind just after the flood which included specific meat, fish, and dairy products (Genesis 9:1-4; Leviticus 11; Deuteronomy 14).

This divine dietary revision clearly identified which animals were to be eaten and which animals were to be avoided. The animals that were permitted were: animals with a cloven or split hoof that also chew the cud (such as cows, goats, sheep, oxen, deer, buffalo, etc.); any fish with fins and scales; and any birds that live primarily on insects, grubs, or grains.

The animals that were NOT to be eaten included camels, horses, rats, skunks, dogs, cats, squirrels, possums, etc. Pigs were also forbidden and considered unclean animals. In fact, pigs are so unclean and polluted that God warned people not to even touch the body, meat, or carcass of a pig. According to many authorities today, eating the flesh of pigs (pork & pork products) is a prime cause of much of our American ill health. In addition, fish or water creatures that don't have fins and scales and all shellfish were considered unclean and forbidden, including catfish, eel, crabs, lobsters, shrimp, oysters, and clams. These hard-shelled crustaceans are the scavengers and garbage containers of the waters and the seas. Modern scientists actually gauge the contamination of our lakes, rivers, bays, and oceans by measuring the mercury and biological toxin levels in the flesh of crabs, clams, oysters, and lobsters. The last category to avoid eating is birds or fowl that eat flesh (whether caught live or as carrion). These birds are unclean and are considered "scavengers" because they eat anything that is left dead in the fields. Scavengers such as shellfish and pigs were never created by God for human consumption.

The second source for my information is what history, science, and research has taught us about what we should NOT be eating. I encourage you to do some basic research using Google to search for more information on this topic. Type in some key words like "the dangers of eating pork or pork products," "the dangers of eating shellfish," "the dangers of eating unclean animals, etc. Look into what scientists and nutritionists have discovered about the dangers of eating the "foods" listed above such as pork products and shellfish. Also, investigate how generations of Jewish families followed God's dietary and hygiene guidelines and enjoyed remarkable resistance to illness and plagues, which devastated neighboring ethnic groups with no such guidelines. Study how the bubonic plague wiped out one quarter of Europe's population in just one year during the mid-fourteenth century, and how the Jewish people somehow escaped its death grip.

Sadly, and to our own detriment, pork and pork products top the list of favorite foods for many Americans. Many don't even realize how much of their food items come from swine. Pork products include the following: bacon, sausage, ham, pepperoni, hot dogs, salami, pork chops, pork ribs, etc. Pigs are considered "unclean" animals for very good scientific reasons. They never limit their diet to vegetation, but rather they will eat anything they can find. A pig's single stomach is very simple in design and function and it is combined with a limited excretory organ system. Only four hours after a pig has eaten his polluted swill and other putrid matter, many may eat the same swill second handed off of the ribs of the pig at a barbecue. Clean animals, on the other hand, have an alimentary canal and a secondary cud receptacle. They basically have three stomachs available to process and refine their clean, vegetarian-based food into "meat flesh" in a process that that generally takes about 24 hours. Another reason not to eat "unclean" animals is that the meat of such animals is about 10 times more perishable and more difficult to preserve than that of "clean" animals. People often don't realize that a piece of meat is already poisonously spoiled until they start experiencing the toxic symptoms and have already eaten it. One more reason is that th by-products that originate from digesting such scavenger meat are very poisonous. These are the "death enzymes" such as putrescine and cadaverine that are useful in breaking down a corpse, but do terrible damage to a living person's body.

In summary, we need to pay attention to our Creator's dietary principles and what modern science, nutrition, and history have discovered about what "foods" NOT to eat. "FOODS" to AVOID include, but are not limited to: pig & all pork products (bacon, sausage, ham, pork ribs, etc.) and all shellfish scavengers such as shrimp, lobster, crab, clams, oysters, scallops, etc. Be careful also to avoid luncheon deli meat that often is made with pork products and are loaded with sodium nitrates. Finally, avoid all "farm-raised" fish which are very unhealthy for you. Remember this simple saying: "If you want to look like a pig, eat a pig."

Tomorrow I will share more about what other non-animal food products to avoid. I hope you're still my friend when tomorrow rolls around. Some of the information in this posting came from Dr. Jordan Rubin's book, "The Maker's Diet," which I recommend. I also recommend Ted Broer's book, "Maximum Energy."

Daily Quote: "Diet remains the single most influential factor in overall human health." - Dr. Jordan Rubin