HEALTHY FOODS: Why Not Pork?

[Carol J Case]

AN ENTRY FROM MEDIALIBRARY'S END-TIMES BLOG

WHY NOT PORK? [Download PDF]
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Excerpt Below from The Word and Christian Life Today: Why Not Pork:

Modern science has demonstrated that the unclean meats as warned against in the kosher law of the Old Testament, are indeed wisdom for us even today. But the most prevalent information on the safety of pork in particular does not reveal this without a little digging. For instance, in a cookbook, Bruce Aidelles of the Aidelles Sausage Company "discusses the old fear of trichinosis, resulting from a parasitic worm that used to cause health hazards but that has all but disappeared with more modern pork husbandry." He also instructs people on how he thinks the trichina worm can be killed, just for good measure, by "freezing meat to minus 10 degrees for seven days or cooking it to an internal temperature of 137 degrees...and holding that temperature for several minutes." [Journal.Now.com] But is Bruce Aidelles correct about this? And is scavenger meat, in particular pork really safe?

The USDA states on the subject of pork that "although inspection is mandatory, its grading for quality is voluntary, and a plant pays to have its pork graded. USDA grades for pork reflect only two levels: 'Acceptable' grade and 'Utility' grade. There is no such thing as grade A pork. The USDA also has information on the temperature at which pork must be cooked to kill all the garbage in it. While they state that "much progress has been made in reducing trichinosis in grain-fed hogs and human cases have greatly declined since 1950," they also state that pork should be cooked to a "medium internal temperature of 160°F or a well-done internal temperature of 170 °F." [http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OA/pubs/pork.htm] Sorry, but when the USDA infers we ought to cook our food at higher temperatures than the sausage companies publish, it is hard to believe that the sausage man has done his homework.

If pork had really been improved that much through the techniques of modern genetics, breeding and feeding, then surely there would be a higher grade of meat available. If there had been ways to make pork a clean meat, surely God would have given us instruction on how to make it clean, rather than telling us to avoid it. He is not short of understanding, neither is he unwise as to the modern scientific techniques. The speaker for Amazing Facts states that "God made some animals that clean the environment. On the ground he's got a pig. It's a scavenger. It's the filthiest of all animals. Their bodies are filled, swarming with vermin and parasites. You look at a piece of pork under a microscope, just right off the market and it'd give you the heebie jeebies. I used to be in the meat business. I know what I'm talking about. Among the birds God simply stipulates the foraging birds were clean. That would be your turkey, your quail, the chicken, the doves. Anyone had any dove lately? Seems sacrilegious to eat a dove, but technically they were clean, right? And the birds of carrion and the carnivorous birds like the hawk and the vulture they were all unclean. These are the basic rules that separated the clean from the unclean animals."
[http://adventist.tv/transcripts/HWA-2003-09-05.doc]