Dietary injunctions and why Heaven Hates Ham.

Pig

Not too many eggs and cakes was my doctor's recent dietary injunction.

And I remember as a Catholic child in Ireland of  how we would not eat fish on Friday's.

Which got me thinking of dietary injunctions and why there such a horror in so many religions of the pig?   For These creatures display many signs of a high intelligence almost as high as dolphins. Hear its squeals as they are born aloft to be slaughtered and they are so eerily human that many  workers are unable to face the experience again

Yet the cloven hoof of the pig has been turned by many religions into a sign of diabolism. to such an extent that has Chirstopher Hitchens asking, '...so why does Heaven hate ham?'.

After all,  as Hitchens argues, this fine beast is one of our fairly close cousins. It shares a great deal of our DNA and transplant to human of its heart, valves, skin and kidneys continue and are increasingly welcome.

So why does Heaven hate ham? For nearly everything about the pig is useful to us, from its delicious nutritious meat to its bristles for brushes.

All of which brings us on to a defining guess of why Heaven hate ham and this leads us on to the taboo subject of cannibalism.

 In days of yore in some tribes in New Guinea the practise of cannibalism would take place and human flesh was eaten, such a delicacy was termed by the tribes 'long pig' so similar was it in taste to the pork of the pig. 

Stomach turning, I know, but it would appear on the evidence that we taste, if eaten, very much like pig. Eeeeeeeeeeek!

Source: Christopher Hitchens  'A short digression on the pig.'