Aurora: How is this principle reflected in the proscription on eating pork?
Harris: The usual reason given for the prohibition on the consumption of pork is that the pig is regarded as a dirty animal; it is impure and unclean, and therefore not to be eaten. That’s the same kind of circular explanation that can be evoked to explain the Hindu prohibition on the slaughter of cattle. It’s the religion that does it. It’s the religion that says pork is unclean. But then why does Judaism state that, and why do Islam and Hinduism follow suit, whereas Christianity deviates and accepts the consumption of pork? If we look once again to the material conditions of production in specific habitats, the first thing that emerges with respect to the pig in the Middle East is that it is the last kind of domesticated animal that you would want to rear in that habitat. Although pigs were originally domesticated in the Middle East, and they were raised and consumed for five to six thousand years before the writing of the prohibitions, they nonetheless were adapted to ecological situations which were rather rare in the Middle East and which became rarer as time went on. The pig is a creature of woodland and glens and riverbanks; it does best when it forages on the forest floor, rooting up everything that has fallen off trees—acorns, different mushrooms, things of that sort. It does not do well in arid habitats. The reason is that the pig doesn’t sweat, despite the common saying that someone is “sweating like a pig”. In fact, pigs don’t have any sweat glands and consequently they have to be wetted down. In order to control their body temperature they have to have external sources of moisture. That’s why they wallow in mud. Pigs prefer to wallow in clean mud, but if nothing else is available, they will frequently wallow in their own urine, giving rise to the notion that they are dirty animals.
Now, the Middle East, especially the desert area, is the last place to raise pigs. There are many other domestic, longhaired animals like cattle, sheep, and goats that are much better suited to arid, sunny, desert conditions. In addition, the pig has another manifest disadvantage: unlike sheep, goats, and cattle, it is not a ruminant. That is, the pig has a digestive system that does not permit it to consume and gain weight on grass. Pigs eat grass if they are very hungry, but they can’t use it as a regular source of food. Ruminants that can live and thrive on grass, whose whole digestive physiology is centred on their ability to consume plants that are high in cellulose, are much preferable to the pig in arid habitats.
If you turn to Europe, to the areas that were the heartland of Christianity at the turn of the Christian era, you are confronted with a totally different ecological situation. Here you do have forests, where pigs could be raised by letting them root about in the forests for a good part of the year. Therefore, you have a different attitude toward them compared with what continues to exist in the Middle East.
Aurora: But the question comes to mind, why bother looking for a religious precept that proscribes pork, then, if pig-raising is so entirely unsuited to the climate and the plant life of the area?
Harris: That’s a very important question. I think the answer is that since it was possible, to a small extent, to raise pigs as a luxury food, it is important to have a taboo or prohibition that says, under no circumstances are you to experiment with this animal, because over the passage of centuries it is the collective wisdom that to do so is to waste resources. The temptation will always exist for some people to try, but God says, “Thou shalt not raise pigs.” This is a sacred rule which fits into a general class of prohibition termed “total prohibitions”. Such prohibitions are digital; that is, they are on-off things. For example, the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” does not say it’s O.K. to kill some people and not others. Such a total taboo is necessary in a situation where the short-term benefits for, let’s say, raising pigs, might be quite good, but the long-term benefits would be quite disastrous for the larger community. The taboo is “on track” in terms of ecological wisdom. It reflects long-standing, accumulated knowledge about the consequences of raising nonruminants in that habitat.
Harris' point is correct about islamm and judaism's reasons for rejecting pork, but do not make any sense when talking about Hinduism's ban on the eating of beef. Firstly, Hindusim is mostly against the eating of any animal because it believes in reincarnation into different animals, so if you eating an animal you may be eating your great grand mother. Next, the cow is useful both as a pack animal and as a provider of milk, so must be preserved.