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Cows Good, Pigs Bad

Aside from bovines and pigs, a common restriction is  Vegetarianism - no animal flesh

It has numerous variations, including semi-vegetarianism or  Flexitarianism: eating only some kinds of animal flesh.

Pollotarianism - only the flesh of poultry birds: chicken, turkey, quail, duck, goose, etc. (Galloanserae). I can't find anything on whether other birds are OK, like ostrich and pigeon.

Phylogeny:
  • Palaeognathae: ostrich, ...
  • Neognathae:
    • Galloanserae: chicken, turkey, duck, goose, ...
    • Neoaves: pigeon, ...

Pescetarianism - only seafood: fish, shrimp, clam, ...

Pesce-pollotarianism - only seafood and poultry

I can't find anything on the allowability of meat of amphibians and reptiles: frog, turtle, lizard, snake, alligator, crocodile. Let's see where they are phylogenetically.

Tetrapoda:
  • Lissamphibia: frog, salamander, ...
  • Amniota:
    • Synapsida: Mammalia
    • Sauropsida:
      • Testudines: turtles
      • Squamata: lizards, snakes
      • Archosauria, crocodilians, dinosaurs: birds
So a pesce-pollotarian might find amphibian and reptile meat OK, and a pescetarian also, since amphibians and reptiles are like fish in being cold-blooded.

Turning to pescetarianism, it encompasses the flesh of all non-tetrapod animals, like fish, crustaceans, bivalves, cephalopods, ... a potential problem is land invertebrates like insects and escargot (snail).
 
Turning to vegetarianism proper, some vegetarians eat animal products without eating animal flesh: egg products (ovo-vegetarianism), milk products (lacto-vegetarianism), or both (lacto-ovo vegetarianism). Rejection of animal products is  Veganism

It's not clear where honey fits in, since it's a plant product: flower juice (nectar). But it's collected and stored by honeybees.

Some vegans are fruitarians, eating only parts of plants naturally released by them, like fruits, and maybe also seeds and nuts. Nuts are hard-shelled seeds, and seeds contain plant embryos, so that makes nuts and seeds problematic. Fruits are seeds with thick edible outer layers, for getting animals to eat them and spread those seeds. So fruits are the least problematic thing to eat.

It must be noted that some culinary vegetables, like tomatoes and cucumbers and squash and melons, are botanical fruits. Grains and beans are all seeds.

Another variation is a macrobiotic diet -- mostly whole grains and beans.
 
lpetrich said:
It's not clear where honey fits in, since it's a plant product: flower juice (nectar). But it's collected and stored by honeybees.
Click to expand...

omfg
if you’re gonna exclude honey because some insects labored over it, then fruits and berries should be excluded on similar grounds.
 
Elixir said:
lpetrich said:
It's not clear where honey fits in, since it's a plant product: flower juice (nectar). But it's collected and stored by honeybees.
Click to expand...

omfg
if you’re gonna exclude honey because some insects labored over it, then fruits and berries should be excluded on similar grounds.
Click to expand...
If honey is vegan because it's made from nectar, then cow's milk is vegan because it's made from grass.

Ideology based dietary restrictions are rarely a good fit with reality; But that's not their purpose. Veganism, just like kosher or halal diets, exists to provide a constant reminder to those who follow the stupid and arbitrary rules that they are different from everyone else, require special treatment and extra attention, and are therefore superior to the ordinary people. It's not meant to be rational, it's meant to be contrarian.

Having said which, of all the insect vomits, honey is the one that's most pleasant to eat.
 
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 Vegetarianism -  History of vegetarianism

Vegetarianism as a religious duty has been the most widely practiced in the Indian subcontinent, where it goes back some 2,500 - 3,000 years. It is associated with ahimsa (Sanskrit, "non-injury, non-violence"), because one must kill animals to get their meat.

The Hindu offshoots Jainism and Buddhism emerged around 500 BCE, and Jains especially have a strong tradition of ahimsa and vegetarianism:  Jain vegetarianism Many Buddhists are also vegetarian:  Buddhist vegetarianism as are many Hindus:  Diet in Hinduism

Most Jains are lacto-vegetarians, if the milk was collected nonviolently, because an egg could grow into something. Also, many Jains don't eat root vegetables because digging them up involves killing the whole plant. Above-ground parts are OK, however, like green vegetables, and botanical fruits and seeds.

Some Jains are careful to sweep bugs out of the way of where they walk, so they don't step on those bugs.

A notable ex-Jain: atheist blogger Hemant Mehta
He continues to be a vegetarian, however. Is he a cultural Jain?
 
I see vegetarianism for some as a general self loathing of being human.

As to religion maybe the ancient Jews observed that pork could cause sickness without knowing why.

For the Indian traditions I think it may be tied to reincarnation. Based on your karma you could be reborn other than human, or above or below your human status in society.

Lacto-Ovo veterinarians, eating eggs, milk, and cheese.
 
steve_bank said:
As to religion maybe the ancient Jews observed that pork could cause sickness without knowing why.
Click to expand...
Maybe. But almost certainly not. There's three eighths of bugger all evidence for this common myth, which looks to me like a classic case of presentism. Nobody had any clue what caused sickness until the enlightenment. Some lucky guesses were made, but basically when people did get it right, prior to the widespread use of the scientific method, it was more luck than judgment.
 
More checking. Escargot are apparently OK for pescetarians, because they classify snails as seafood, even land snails. A more sensible approach would be to say that they are not warm-blooded animals, or else land vertebrates, however pescetarians want to draw the line. Some of them argue about whether frog or turtle or lizard or alligator is OK -- cold-blooded land vertebrates.

But mushrooms, seaweed, and spirulina are all considered vegetarian. Mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of certain fungi, and fungi are organisms with animal-like metabolism that are thin strands that grow inside what they eat. Seaweed that we eat? Nori, a red alga, sea lettuce, a green alga, and kelp, a stramenopile alga. Spirulina is a cyanobacterium, a blue-green alga, the only prokaryote that we eat in bulk.

Phylogeny:

Eukaryotes:
  • Opisthokonta
    • Animals
    • Fungi
  • Archaeplastida - with primary endosymbosis
    • Green algae, land plants
    • Red algae
  • Stramenopiles - kelp

Prokaryotes: cyanobacteria, including Spirulina
 
Ancient people did not have to know why a particular mudroom could make you sick or kill you, only correlate problems by observation.

Naturally sometimes the correction would be wrong and sometimes rigt.

Trichinosis Fact Sheet

Communicable Disease Fact Sheet, trichinosis
www.health.ny.gov



What is trichinosis?

Trichinosis is a food-borne disease caused by a microscopic parasite called Trichinella. People can get this disease by eating raw or undercooked meat from animals infected with the parasite. Often these infected meats come from wild game, such as bear, or pork products.
Who gets trichinosis?

Anyone who eats raw or undercooked meat from infected animals can develop trichinosis. Most cases come from consuming undercooked wild game meat, such as bear, while some other cases come from eating pork products. The parasite is not found in domestic pigs raised in confinement, but can be found in pigs raised outdoors in close contact with wildlife and rodents. Trichinosis infection is relatively rare in the United States.
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steve_bank said:
Ancient people did not have to know why a particular mudroom could make you sick or kill you, only correlate problems by observation.

Naturally sometimes the correction would be wrong and sometimes rigt.

Trichinosis Fact Sheet

Communicable Disease Fact Sheet, trichinosis
www.health.ny.gov



What is trichinosis?

Trichinosis is a food-borne disease caused by a microscopic parasite called Trichinella. People can get this disease by eating raw or undercooked meat from animals infected with the parasite. Often these infected meats come from wild game, such as bear, or pork products.
Who gets trichinosis?

Anyone who eats raw or undercooked meat from infected animals can develop trichinosis. Most cases come from consuming undercooked wild game meat, such as bear, while some other cases come from eating pork products. The parasite is not found in domestic pigs raised in confinement, but can be found in pigs raised outdoors in close contact with wildlife and rodents. Trichinosis infection is relatively rare in the United States.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Yeah, I will bet dollars to donuts that nobody in the ancient world had any idea what caused trichinosis. It was just something that happened to people, probably because they had upset the gods.
 
Turning to Western vegetarianism, the first notable Western vegetarians were followers of Pythagoras: Pythagoreans. They rejected meat eating because acquiring meat involves killing animals, a common reason in the Indian subcontinent, a violation of ahimsa.

They also rejected the eating of beans, for reasons that continue to remain obscure.

The rise of Christianity meant the end of this motivation for vegetarianism for a long time, though some people were part-time or full-time vegetarians as a form of ascetic self-denial. For instance, Catholics have traditionally not eaten meat on Fridays because Jesus Christ was executed on a Friday. But they often ate fish instead, making them pescetarians on that day.
 
bilby said:
steve_bank said:
As to religion maybe the ancient Jews observed that pork could cause sickness without knowing why.
Click to expand...
Maybe. But almost certainly not. There's three eighths of bugger all evidence for this common myth, which looks to me like a classic case of presentism. Nobody had any clue what caused sickness until the enlightenment. Some lucky guesses were made, but basically when people did get it right, prior to the widespread use of the scientific method, it was more luck than judgment.
Click to expand...
Even in the absence of such understanding, one could address this issue empirically. But one has to ask why prohibition of pork was so rare. Why didn't anyone else notice that alleged correlation?
 
lpetrich said:
Turning to Western vegetarianism, the first notable Western vegetarians were followers of Pythagoras: Pythagoreans. They rejected meat eating because acquiring meat involves killing animals, a common reason in the Indian subcontinent, a violation of ahimsa.

They also rejected the eating of beans, for reasons that continue to remain obscure.

The rise of Christianity meant the end of this motivation for vegetarianism for a long time, though some people were part-time or full-time vegetarians as a form of ascetic self-denial. For instance, Catholics have traditionally not eaten meat on Fridays because Jesus Christ was executed on a Friday. But they often ate fish instead, making them pescetarians on that day.
Click to expand...

I guess that means pork and beans are right off the menu. No more beanie weinies.
 
On a trip to India in 2007, we didn't have many encounters with cows, but there was no question of the affection that many Hindus felt towards cows. They were allowed to wander everywhere and had no fear of people. Here is a picture from a visit to the southern city of Mysore. We watched the cow wander into a busy intersection and lie down for a rest. Traffic moved around it but gave it a respectful distance.

Mysore 014.jpg
 
Scince has relced a lot of superstition and myth, but we are still the same basic humans.

I grew up hearing things like 'starve a fever and feed a cold'.

Healthy people take yogurt thinking that it keep yhem healthy while sudies show no effect. Same with vitamins and all those supplements.

In the 60s, 70s, 80s there were the Paleo and Macrobiotic diets.

I listen to the pseudo science radio show Coast To Coast AM. Plenty of food myths. Did you know putting mushrooms in sunlight and the mudrooms will absorb vitamin D from the sunight? Wild plants in our neighborhood can prevent and cure COVID?

If you want to understand ancient cultures just look at humans today.
 
steve_bank said:
I grew up hearing things like 'starve a fever and feed a cold'.
Click to expand...
The proverb is "Feed a fever, starve a cold", and uses an archaic meaning of "starve" which used to just mean "kill" or "die". It's a contraction of "Feed a fever and you will starve a cold", and originally meant that if a person has a fever, you should ensure that they eat an adequate amount, lest they succumb to a cold.

It's a single piece of advice, not a pair of alternatives.
 
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