Hey, I hope everyone had a great weekend and enjoyed the game last night. I must say I know nothing about football – except that it’s played with a pig skin – and couldn’t care less about watching the Super Bowl, though the commercials are quite amusing. I liked the Budweiser “Wild West” one where the outlaw dude rides into town then walks, spurs jingling, scowl intensifying, into a bar and demands a “Bud” from the bartender. Of course, they’re all gone, but before our ne’er do well can blast the bartender’s brains out with his Colt revolver (or whatever it’s supposed to be), the new shipment of ice-cold beer arrives. After the pacified outlaw produces the obligatory “Ahhh…” after his first sip, he proceeds to begin singing the lyrics to Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer:” Blue jean baby, L.A. lady, seamstress for the band… Then the whole saloon joins in, the Clydesdale horses outside rear up and rejoice, and all is right in the world of the lawless frontier, thanks to booze, haha. And of course, it’s hard to beat the E*Trade baby ads ;-).

Wow, I just spent 200 words endorsing an endorsement for alcohol! Shame on me! Okay, well now I’m about to de-endorse Hormel ham and Jimmy Dean sausage links and patties, so prepare yourselves…

I wrote last week that I by no means think it’s sinful or rebellious to eat foods prohibited by God via the 3,000 year-old Mosaic law; we’re freed from the law of “sin and death”(Rom. 8:2) and we’re not to judge one another based on what we eat and drink (Col. 2:16). However, I think it’s worth pointing out that just as every Old Testament sacrificial law and ordinance was rife with symbolism pointing to the fulfillment of the law through Christ, surely there is nothing arbitrary or insignificant about the dietary rules God gave His people. Now, about pigs…

Leviticus 11:3 makes it clear that creatures with split hooves that chew “the cud” (regurgitated food) may be eaten. Pigs, though they have split hooves, do not re-chew their food. Similarly, cud-chewing camels are off-limits because their hooves are undivided. The reason pigs do not re-chew their food is due to their limited anatomy. They, unlike cattle, only have one stomach available to process and refine its contents. Their simply made stomachs and excretory organ systems were not designed to cleanse themselves of all the putrid and polluted matter entering into them. In other words, when we eat barbecued ribs, we are actually consuming more than we realize. Pigs are the antithesis of picky eaters; they’ll eat anything they can get their snouts on, from a fellow swine’s droppings to dead, diseased animals.

Besides their toxic diets, pigs also possess large amounts of sulfur in their connective tissues which can lead to increased blood acidity and osteoporosis. Research has even found that 56% of all pork samples are contaminated with salmonella! I don’t know about you, but I think I’ll switch to turkey bacon. Oh, and flip open a cookbook and you’ll discover a heavy emphasis on fully cooking pork to a well-done state. What these warnings fail to mention is that the reason to do this is to guard against the trichinia worms that only unclean animals host! Gross!

Animals okay for consumption – aka, chew their cud and have split hooves – include cows, buffalo, goats, sheep, and so forth. These vegetarian critters, whose diets consist of grasses and hay, use their secondary stomachs to thoroughly digest food and eliminate waste. Grass-fed versions of these meat sources have been found to have substantially less fat than their grain-fed counterparts. Not only is grass-fed better for you, it’s much tastier.

This is my understanding: These ol’ bodies of ours are all we have to serve God with ’til Jesus comes for us or calls us home.  God’s health laws do not add or subtract from our salvation, which comes only through belief and faith in His Son, Jesus Christ, but they do make for a cleaner dwelling place for His Spirit.

Stay fit, stay faithful ~<3 Di