In the last blog post we discussed a food that we absolutely need to eat, the navy bean. This time we are going to discuss a food that we need to absolutely stay away from, pork. Pork is one of those foods that appears to be rooted in emotion. When you tell someone, “I don’t eat pork”, it is often followed by a guttural response such as “You don’t eat pork? Why not?”. Especially in the culture of the black man and woman living in the wilderness of North America, pork is falsely interlaced with our “culture”. Ribs at cookouts, bacon for breakfast, souse, even greens are made with pig parts. One thing we should clarify is this culture of pork and the black person in America.
Culture according to Merriam’s dictionary is the “customary beliefs, social forms and material traits of a racial, religious or social group. Another definition is the set of shared attitudes, values, goals and practices that characterizes an institution or organization. Culture is what we share but we decide that culture. Soul food originated out of survival. Our enslaved ancestors were given the scraps that were not wanted by the slave masters and our ancestors being the resilient surviving people they are, turned something rejected into a meal. We have been passing down these recipes in the name of culture but what about that ability to turn nothing into something. Imagine if we applied that ability into making food that is good for us. Like taking the humble navy bean and turning it into a delicious meal to nourish ourselves. (Have you tasted a bean pie yet?)
Let us talk about the pig. In How to Eat to Live, The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad says of the pig,
“He is the foulest animal. He lives off nothing but filth. The only way you can get him to live and eat better food is to keep him from getting to filth. He is so poisonous (99.9 per cent) that you can hardly poison him with other poison. You can even give him lye-something you’d think would cut up the intestines when eaten. Snakes can't poison hogs; they eat them and fatten. The bite of snakes doesn’t harm them, because they eat the biter. He is so poisonous and filthy, that nature had to prepare him a sewer line and you may find the opening on his forelegs. It is a little hole out of which oozes pus. This is the filth of his body that cannot be passed fast enough. His poison is that of a live nature, in the form of a parasitic worm that is called trichina (commonly known as pork worm), which is found in the stomach and intestinal walls- until it finally breeds and works itself into the muscles of the body of the eater. From there the trichinae work themselves into the spinal cord and travel the spinal cord toward the brain, at which time there is no possible cure. They then cause the victim to suffer with rheumatism, backaches, stomach aches, headaches, fever and even change the color of the eyes of some eaters to a dull brown or dull red. They fill the eater with a drowsiness, laziness-slow thinking, slow moving and the tendency to be easily irritated.” Another article from the national geographic discussed how pigs will eat anything also. “They’ll eat corn in a field, they’ll eat garbage on city streets, your kitchen waste or acorns in forests, even seashells on beaches. Because a pig will eat anything, it means it eats unsavoury things such as dead animals, rotting garbage, and even human faeces”.
We have heard the saying, “you are what you eat”. This statement is powerful because what we eat causes reactions in our body that increases hormones, relaxes us, and can even cloud our thinking, make us sad, or angry. A Harvard study pointed out how 90% of serotonin receptors are found in the gut. Serotonin is a hormone that gives us a feeling of happiness, well being and a stable mood. This is being studied by a new field called nutritional psychiatry that helps people learn how what they eat can affect their mood both positively and negatively. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, in 2019 about 19.4 million Americans reported feeling depressed and 3.8 million children between the ages of 12-17. A 2018 study outlined how eating a healthy diet may lessen the risk of depression. They highlighted the Mediterranean diet, a diet low in processed foods and centered around eating beans, fruits and vegetables and fish twice a week.
No matter the reasons, God who is the best knower made it plain to us in the Holy Quran to not eat pork. “He has forbidden you only what dies of itself, and blood, and the flesh of swine, and that over which any other (name) than (that of) Allah has been invoked. Then whoever is driven by necessity, not desiring, nor exceeding the limit, no sin is upon him. Surely Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.” Surah 2:173. I want to end this post with the first 5 ayats (verses) of the 2nd Surah in the Holy Quran:
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful.
2:1 I, Allah, am the best Knower.
2:2 This Book, there is no doubt in it, is a guide to those who keep their duty,
2:3 Who believe in the Unseen and keep up prayer and spend out of what We have given them,
2:4 And who believe in that which has been revealed to thee and that which was revealed before thee, and of the Hereafter they are sure.
2:5 These are on a right course from their Lord and these it is that are successful.
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