Religious restrictions on the consumption of pork

Swine were prohibited in ancient Syria[1] and Phoenicia,[2] and the pig and its flesh represented a taboo observed, Strabo noted, at Comana in Pontus.

[4] In Abrahamic religions, eating pig flesh is clearly forbidden by Jewish (kashrut), Islamic (haram) and Christian Adventist (kosher animals) dietary laws.

With the feet of a cud-eater, the diet of a scavenger, the habits of a dirt-dweller and the cunning of a human, it exhibited an unsettling combination of characteristics, rendering it culturally inedible for some (but not all) southern Levantine peoples, for whom pigs were often associated with the underworld or malevolent supernatural powers.'

[12] (16:115)I do not find in what has been revealed to me anything forbidden for anyone who wants to eat unless it is carrion, outpoured blood and the flesh of swine, all of which is unclean (Quran Al An'am 6:145)Generally, so long as it was affirmed that no impurities came in contact with the meat served in Western countries (which are mostly governed by the People of the Book), then it is considered Halal.

[citation needed] The cultural materialistic anthropologist Marvin Harris thought that the main reason for prohibiting consumption of pork was ecological-economical.

Unlike many other forms of livestock, pigs are omnivorous scavengers, eating virtually anything they come across, including carrion and refuse, which was deemed unclean.

[citation needed] It is speculated that chickens supplanted pigs as a more portable and efficient source of meat, and these practical concerns led to the religious restrictions.

[23] Maimonides, the Jewish philosopher, legal codifier, and court physician to the Muslim sultan Saladin in the 12th century, understood the dietary laws chiefly as a means of keeping the body healthy.

[24] Rashi (the primary Jewish commentator on the Bible and Talmud) lists the prohibition of pig as a law whose reason is not known, and may therefore be derided by others as making no sense.