I rarely eat meat or seafood now. Mostly because of big warehouse farm and slaughterhouse cruelties. Also, because of effects of huge farms on sustainability, i.e., overuse of water; overuse of land for livestock feed; use of toxic fertilizers and pesticides. I quit eating seafood, due to threat of extinction. I obtain protein & vitamins from sustainable foods.

I agree with everything you said here.

@AnonySchmoose I read that young couples should make a plan for life together and promise only 2 kids and to walk as much as possible and get bikes for shorter trips and go meatless 2 days and we could save our planet ''''who knows I get the bug now and then and make a meatless day once a week...and we recycle all we can and our house id a recycling haven if we get a meal out we wash and save the containers and reuse them ....at family dinners if leftovers are taken we use those take out containers

I've met people on Agnostic who don't eat animals because they respect them.
I try to be like that, because of the extinction threat, but occasionally I eat meat.

@AnonySchmoose Some times it just takes time. It can really be hard to go cold tofurkey. LOL

Yes, maybe one billion people have a bias against eating insects.
It is understandable to not eat animals that get worms, which could remain alive after being eaten.

Could be that's another reason for the taboo.
Wow, there may be a lot reasons!

Thanks, thoughtful comment about syncretic mix of beliefs.
Not so sure about a shootout. Would you like to rephrase that?

@AnonySchmoose My Texan roots are showing. Thats how most discussions about religions are settled here.

Yes, religion is the main excuse, and resulted from other excuses.

That is a thoughtful analysis. I wish to thank you. To 'identify' an entire cultural group by superficial differences in order to feel justified in treating them as inferior does seem historically realistic.

There is health reasons not to eat pork.

Since the pig’s digestive system operates rather basically, many of these toxins remain in its system to be stored in its more than adequate fatty tissues ready for our consumption. [draxe.com]

@AnonySchmoose At a later date that narrative also suited the Arabs too, since they were also a desert people trying to steal land in the fertile areas of Mesopotamia and North Africa. And since it was already established and written down for them by the Hebrews, a given.

@Word Yes that is in the video. But such reasons of health and hygene tend to dominate the debate, because of course, theists today, are trying to justify the texts, and put the best spin on them.

It is possible and probable that health was a contributing reason, it is the most often given today. (By theists especially.) But I doubt that in the Bronze Age, health seemed anything like as urgent an issue as fighting the guy coming at you swinging a sword, for the land to feed your children, and persuading those children to keep up the fight.

@Fernapple much of the laws for the nation of Israel has to do with health, hygiene and cleanliness.

I can understand telling the bronze age people "just don't eat pork". The "scientific " understanding can be a lot more complicated. Did they have brick school houses built by true masons to teach a lot of complicated science to goat herders? No, so its easier to just say, "do this. Do that, don't do this or that" rather than going thru and teaching all the scientific details when there isn't even a brick school house built by true masons in every pasture of sheep grazing.

@Word True, and I would not say that health and hygiene were not important parts of the laws. Only, let us not put whitewash on those times, they were people just like us, and there were probably just as many bad nasty reasons for doing things, and making laws, then, as there are today.

When a white American evangelical tells you not to put on a face mask, it could be that, as they may claim, they are concerned about the heath dangers that could come about because of badly washed masks. And/or it could be just, that they hate any instruction which comes from a government which they hate in turn, because it will not indulge them in their racism. That is not to say that there is no danger from unhygienic face masks kept on too long and not washed properly, ( though it is trivial compared with Covid, ) just that the reason given is not always the only motivation for saying something, and not always the main one.

@Word what "toxins"???? Petroleum by-products? Asbestos? Lead paint? Not-so-much back then.......

@AnneWimsey Yes. I often thought. Since there are some health problems with under-cooked pork, so if god knew everything, why did he not just tell them to cook it well. LOL ?

The frogs eat the French? Who knew?
Just kidding . The English language does not make this clear unless one says, the French who eat frogs. (Among other things such as sauces to mask the fetid odor of questionable meat delectable carrion).

@Mooolah I often cut up French people into small pieces to feed my frogs ?

@AnneWimsey free radicals

As to your paragraph regarding Exodus and Hebrews escaping Slavery in Ancient Egypt, that tale is a 100% load of biblical CRAP.
AND it has been Archeologically proven to 100% FALSE .

@Triphid Very true, I should perhaps have put it more strongly, but was perhaps more interested in how the story may have started.

Rarel . . . now and then I will eat a little bacon.

NOTHING beats a nice Pork Stir-Fry with a Sweet and Sour Sauce.

However, when their environment permits it, they prefer to be clean.