posted
Actually, it's the apex predators that have the highest levels of heavy metals. There's a reason they caution pregnant women to not eat much tuna, shark, swordfish, etc. It's because they are very high in mercury, because mercury and other heavy metals bioaccumulate more and more as you go higher in the food chain. It's mainly in the organs and fat of those predators, though, that the really high levels are found. Heavy metals tend to accumulate in the organs and fat more so than muscle meat and other body parts.
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posted
I always thought this instruction given to ancient Israel was a bit amusing: "You shall not eat anything that dies of itself; you may give it to aliens residing in your towns for them to eat, or you may sell it to a foreigner." (Deut. 14:21; NRSV)
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posted
What's amusing about it, Ron? There are certain things that we're not allowed to derive any benefit from. This is explicitly not one of them.
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posted
Twitter people have come up with all kinds of amusing ideas: hamthrax sowmanella oinkageddon aporkalypse snoutbreak the other white flu #namethatfluPosts: 2034 | Registered: Apr 2004
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Oh, come on, Lisa. You know why Deut. 14:21 would be amusing. Because anything that died of itself is most likely to be unhealthful (diseased, whatever), and such can be readily fed to those who are not Jews. Thanks, but I will continue to comply with Leviticus 11, because I figure the Creator should know what is most unhealthful for humans to eat. There are clear benefits for anyone who abides by Lev. 11. Go ahead, hog it all to yourself.... Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
1) You are assuming that the kosher rules are strictly about health. Under your assumption, Jews should sell milk only to Jews because nonJews have a habit of melting cheese onto hamburgers. 2) There is nothing in the kosher rules which obligates Jews into forcing nonJews to stay kosher. NonJews eat lots of things that kosher-observant Jews do not.
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Oh, come on, Lisa. You know why Deut. 14:21 would be amusing. Because anything that died of itself is most likely to be unhealthful (diseased, whatever), and such can be readily fed to those who are not Jews.
That's dumb. If you go hunting and shoot an animal, and then it bleeds out, it's considered "an animal that dies of itself". Because getting shot isn't guaranteed to be fatal. So this means that a Jew can hunt animals, but can only sell or give the kills to non-Jews, because it's forbidden for a Jew to eat such meat.
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Thanks, but I will continue to comply with Leviticus 11, because I figure the Creator should know what is most unhealthful for humans to eat. There are clear benefits for anyone who abides by Lev. 11. Go ahead, hog it all to yourself....
Oh. I see. So you like Leviticus 11, but not Deuteronomy 14. I guess you figure God was only semicompetant.
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posted
I heard on the news that a herd of pigs actually caught it from a human. And all I could think was that the pigs are going to go into a panic over this outbreak of human flu.
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Oh, come on, Lisa. You know why Deut. 14:21 would be amusing. Because anything that died of itself is most likely to be unhealthful (diseased, whatever), and such can be readily fed to those who are not Jews.
That's dumb. If you go hunting and shoot an animal, and then it bleeds out, it's considered "an animal that dies of itself". Because getting shot isn't guaranteed to be fatal. So this means that a Jew can hunt animals, but can only sell or give the kills to non-Jews, because it's forbidden for a Jew to eat such meat.
Huh. Wait really?? How would that work if you were living in an environment in which hunting provided you with the best source of food? Did Jews never in history travel outside the range of a convenient meat market or 7/11? I also seem to recall that the story goes that Moses and the Jews in the desert ate wild quail. Did they have to capture it alive and then kill it in a Kosher fashion? Not that I buy the whole wandering in the desert for 40 years business, but seriously, how does a person sustain himself in that situation?
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quote:If you go hunting and shoot an animal, and then it bleeds out, it's considered "an animal that dies of itself". Because getting shot isn't guaranteed to be fatal.
What if you run up to the dying deer and slit its throat or bash in its skull? Could you then eat the meat? What if you actually shot it in the brain or heart in the first place?
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posted
I actually don't know as much as I should about the methods of preparing meat, since in Jewish culture, the lay-man has stopped preparing his own meat for many years now.
But I know that Jews cannot eat any meat that was not ritually slaughtered. We can't eat meat that was bashed or shot at, etc.
Jews trap animals and then slaughter them.
Also consider that the majority of meat that Jews eat are domesticated animals - sheep and cattle.
That is what accounts for a large part of kosher issues. The whole blessed by a rabbi thing is nonsense - the reason why a Jew can't buy a steak at a restaurant is largely because the animal wasn't properly killed.
Edit - The quail, right. You can trap them. But also, it was divinely brought. Commentaries say the sky was so thick with quail that you could reach your hand out and grab one.
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posted
I was initially trying to look for a synonym of 'illness' that started with 'O', so I could suggest, "Oinker..." I couldn't think of one, and was gratified to not find any on thesaurus.com despite going through illness, sickness, malady, malaise, unwell, and plague.
So now I suggest 'Porker Plague', but that's not as good.
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Oh, come on, Lisa. You know why Deut. 14:21 would be amusing. Because anything that died of itself is most likely to be unhealthful (diseased, whatever), and such can be readily fed to those who are not Jews.
That's dumb. If you go hunting and shoot an animal, and then it bleeds out, it's considered "an animal that dies of itself". Because getting shot isn't guaranteed to be fatal. So this means that a Jew can hunt animals, but can only sell or give the kills to non-Jews, because it's forbidden for a Jew to eat such meat.
Huh. Wait really?? How would that work if you were living in an environment in which hunting provided you with the best source of food? Did Jews never in history travel outside the range of a convenient meat market or 7/11?
<shrug> If hunting provided the best source of food, we'd go with the second best source. Them's the rules. Trapping, okay. Hunting, not okay. Except, of course, for selling to others.
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: I also seem to recall that the story goes that Moses and the Jews in the desert ate wild quail. Did they have to capture it alive and then kill it in a Kosher fashion? Not that I buy the whole wandering in the desert for 40 years business, but seriously, how does a person sustain himself in that situation?
Yep. We had to catch them and kill them in a kosher manner. But there was manna every day anyway, so quail was extra.
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quote:If you go hunting and shoot an animal, and then it bleeds out, it's considered "an animal that dies of itself". Because getting shot isn't guaranteed to be fatal.
What if you run up to the dying deer and slit its throat or bash in its skull? Could you then eat the meat? What if you actually shot it in the brain or heart in the first place?
Nope. If it would have died of the wound had you not slit its throat in the correct way first, it counts as an animal that died of its own.
In fact, I don't know if you've ever heard of the term "glatt kosher". Glatt is Yiddish for "smooth". It refers to checking the lungs of the animal to make sure there were no adhesions. The idea is to ensure that the animal was absolutely healthy. That the only cause of death in any way was the ritual slaughtering.
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posted
So it's not just that the animal had to die in a way that ensured it could not have died naturally? It also has to die in a specific ritual way?
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posted
"I heard on the news that a herd of pigs actually caught it from a human."
quote:Mixing Vessel Pigs are an ideal breeding ground for new forms of the flu, including the new H1N1 virus, Nancy Cox, chief of the flu division at the CDC’s Center for Immunization and Respiratory Disease, said at the briefing. The running hypothesis among scientists has been that the new flu -- a combination of four strains from swine, birds and humans -- started inside a pig, she said.... ...Pigs serve as a "wonderful mixing vessel" for bird, human and swine viruses, Cox of the CDC said.
"If pigs are infected with this new virus, and some of the swine influenza viruses that are already circulating, there could be additional reassortments of them," she said. "Likewise if a human were co-infected with one of the seasonal influenza viruses, and this new H1N1 virus, we could have a virus reassortment which emerged that has slightly different properties than either of the two parental viruses."
Reassortment "is of major concern" in the new virus, Schuchat said. Even if symptoms remain mild, the ease with which the illness can spread among a world population with little natural immunity still makes it a threat, she said.
posted
(Apparently), all this has happened before and it will happen again.
quote: For a long time it was thought (and I learned in medical school) that the 1918 pandemic was caused when the virus jumped from pigs to humans. It is only recently, with advanced methods for analyzing the family tree of viruses, that there is good evidence we got the direction wrong: the virus came originally from birds to humans and we then gave it to pigs (Taubenberger et al.; Vana and Westover).
posted
The trick is knowing which of the times it happens will lead to a particularly pathogenic mutation, and which will not -- and reliably so.
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posted
Well, I came here to say that the best name I'd heard so far was Colbert Flu (you know, since he's always trying to get things named after him and he managed to frak up those of us who were trying to get the new space station pod named "Serenity"...)
But then I saw manpigflu.... that wins...
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posted
CT: Being able to do that sounds kinda improbable. What do you know (or can link to) about that area?
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: Well, I came here to say that the best name I'd heard so far was Colbert Flu (you know, since he's always trying to get things named after him and he managed to frak up those of us who were trying to get the new space station pod named "Serenity"...)
But then I saw manpigflu.... that wins...
I think you can clearly blame NASA for that for deciding on their own will to not go for the second most popular choice after Colbert. Its not Colbert's fault that NASA didnt make any sense.
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Lisa, are you deliberately trying to be dense? Or do you actually believe that God proscribed certain kinds of meat just to deprive you of something good so you could have a special "covenant" relation with Him? Must you deny what is evident to everyone else, that the meats said to be unclean in Lev. 11 are unclean for scientifically valid reasons--they are predominately carnivores or scavengers, which tend to concentrate toxins and diseases in the food chain? Some animals said to be unclean have toxic amounts of vitamin A in their livers--you eat the liver of a bear, or dog, and you will probably die. The livers of cows or chickens will not kill you. Shell fish are forbidden too, because as filter-feeders, they concentrate heavy metals and certain diseases such as Hepatitis, if they are anywhere near a sewage outlet.
One of the key parts of "kosher" preparation of meats is to rid the meat of all the blood possible, since "the life is in the blood" and eating blood is forbidden. But truly kosher meat is pretty bland and leathery. It is so much less trouble just to go whole hog and be vegetarians. (Sorry, I had to say that.)
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posted
I like "The Porker Plague." The problem is that I wish we could use porker as the last word, but I can't figure out how to make it work. "The Manipig Pandemic" attains a sort of appalling grandeur.
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posted
"Peste porcina" is Spanish for swine flu. Or we could mingle the linguas and call it porcina flu. That's one less syllable, and flows better, than "H1N1 Flu," which is what the newsfolk are calling it lately.
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Lisa, are you deliberately trying to be dense?
Ron, are you deliberately trying to be obnoxious?
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Or do you actually believe that God proscribed certain kinds of meat just to deprive you of something good so you could have a special "covenant" relation with Him?
Who said that? God commanded us what He commanded us. Perhaps you feel you can sit on judgement over your Creator, but we don't have that kind of hubris.
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Must you deny what is evident to everyone else, that the meats said to be unclean in Lev. 11 are unclean for scientifically valid reasons--they are predominately carnivores or scavengers, which tend to concentrate toxins and diseases in the food chain?
There are many, many commandments that simply have no "scientifically valid" reason that we can see. For example, the fact that the ashes of a red heifer purify someone who is in a state of defilement, but paradoxically defile someone who is in a state of purity. Explain that for us, O All Knowing Ron.
You want to put your Creator in a box. You want to wall Him in to make yourself feel comfortable. Honestly, I don't see a big difference between you and King of Men, except that he's a bit more honest about things. You don't accept God, who defines you. You want a god that you can define.
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Some animals said to be unclean have toxic amounts of vitamin A in their livers--you eat the liver of a bear, or dog, and you will probably die.
Some. And some don't. And some animals that are said to be clean have health issues that the unclean ones rarely have. Anthrax, for example, is a much bigger issue for cattle than it is for swine.
So, Ron, if God doesn't meet your requirements for explainability, will you simply reject Him?
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: The livers of cows or chickens will not kill you. Shell fish are forbidden too, because as filter-feeders, they concentrate heavy metals and certain diseases such as Hepatitis, if they are anywhere near a sewage outlet.
Hmm... because there were a lot of "sewage outlets" in the Sinai desert. You're kind of funny, Ron. Funny in the humorous sense, too.
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: One of the key parts of "kosher" preparation of meats
Why the scare quotes, Ron?
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: is to rid the meat of all the blood possible, since "the life is in the blood" and eating blood is forbidden. But truly kosher meat is pretty bland and leathery. It is so much less trouble just to go whole hog and be vegetarians. (Sorry, I had to say that.)
You're an idiot. Truly kosher meat is only bland and leathery if it's overcooked. Just like non-kosher meat.
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quote:Honestly, I don't see a big difference between you and King of Men, except that he's a bit more honest about things.
To be fair, Lisa, I see a lot more in common between you and Ron on this topic than I do between Ron and KoM.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: But truly kosher meat is pretty bland and leathery.
You are so eating in the wrong restaurants.
I don't know if I've ever eaten in a kosher restaurant, but the beef I've had at botmitzvas and such has been really good.
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quote:Originally posted by rivka: Now I really want to go to Shiloh's. Which my pocket cannot afford.
Alas!
Wow... you have some nice restaurants in LA. We have Shallots here, which is the highest end kosher restaurant in the city (and has sweetbreads to die for), but it doesn't look nearly as nice as that. I'm jealous. And you even have one of the kosher Subways, too (to go to the other extreme). I ate at the one in Cleveland, but apparently, Chicago doesn't count.
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quote:Honestly, I don't see a big difference between you and King of Men, except that he's a bit more honest about things.
To be fair, Lisa, I see a lot more in common between you and Ron on this topic than I do between Ron and KoM.
Sure. You may see Lisa and Ron as stubborn religious fanatics. But Lisa is not arrogant enough to think that she knows why God commands what God commands. I mean, often the bible explains why a certain command has been issued, while other times, it is silent. I think Lisa deserves a great measure of respect for her level of religious consistency. She may hold her head higher than the rest of mankind, but she bows her head before her creator.
What Ron is doing by using his own judgment on a seemingly illogical part of why God commands what he commands is apologetically explaining the restrictions that make him uncomfortable.
What Lisa is saying is that Ron serves himself, not the creator, in the same way KoM serves himself. I respect KoM more for that as he is not pretending to be something that he is not.
This goes back to our discussion on the other thread about the principles of a religious person. The fundamentals have to be in place. God defines morality, not a human. To be religious isn't to rely on moral intuition, it is to TOTALLY submit yourself to a power that you know to be greater than you. Perhaps the most basic trait of a religious person is humility.
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posted
Ron--thanks. I needed a good laugh, and a person of faith attempting to Logic another person out of their faith is about as humorous as I could handle right now.
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quote:Originally posted by Armoth: I'm personally a prime-grill fan...
Prime Grill L.A. or NY? If the former, Shiloh's is better. If the latter, comparable.
Lisa, we do have some nice kosher restaurants (but no Indian! alas!!!) When I was in Chicago a few years back, I was very disappointed by the quality of the kosher places.
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posted
That seems so strange to me. I don't know what the Jewish population of Chicago is, but it has to be large enough that there would be money to be made catering to it with good, high end kosher restaurants. Am I wrong in thinking that, or is there some reason why this void hasn't been filled handily by now?
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