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Pork -- it's what's for PurimPork -- it's what's for PurimContrary to popular belief, pork is more kosher than your Bubbe's brisket. The case for pork on Purim. by Aaron Gross March 12, 2003 Pork is non-kosher par excellence and, I argue, the perfect food for the upcoming celebration of Purim. Forget those triangular hamantaschen cookies. Whether you keep kosher or eat everything, I suggest that this Purim, Jews should start eating kosher pork instead of chicken, fish, or beef. What food could be more in line with the topsy-turvy spirit of Purim, the festival on which we remember how Esther and Mordecai turned an evil plot against Jews into a victory, than kosher pork? I'm not talking about eating a dead pig -- that, we can do without. I'm talking about fakin' bacon, pseudo-sausage, and pigless pepperoni. There is a wave of wonderful vegetarian faux pork in today's supermarket and, I submit, this pork is more kosher than you Bubeleh's brisket. Most of this faux pork is certified kosher (no kidding), but what makes me say it is more kosher? First, eating kosher pork rather than meat let's you pig-out without porking-up. According the American Dietetic Association, multiple studies have shown that eating meat can contribute to obesity. More significantly, the three biggest "killers" in this country -- heart disease, cancer, and stroke -- are all preventable to some degree through lifestyle changes, including adopting a low fat vegetarian diet (see www.PCRM.org for more info). Second, kosher pork is green. No, I don't mean that the pork is actually the color green. Thankfully, that is only the case in Dr. Seuss books. I mean that vegetarian faux pork is ecologically sound while meat-based diets contribute to our ecological woes. According to the environmental think tank, World Watch Institute, meat-based diets burden our limited supply of fossil fuels because the grain fed to farm animals is an energy-intensive product. Animal agriculture also wastes land resources and contributes to water and air pollution. Finally, kosher pork saves lives. I don't have in mind here your own life, though a vegetarian diet may save it. Rather, I mean the lives of literally billions of animals that are raised and killed in cruel conditions each year to feed our appetite for meat, fish, eggs, and milk. Even in a Purim article, I think it's hard to laugh at the plight, for example, of chickens who routinely have their sentient beaks seared off with hot irons when they are only days old. The beak is seared off so the chickens can't mutilate each other with it in the filthy, over-crowded conditions that prevail on today's factory farms. Purim's playful spirit calls Jews to drink until they cannot distinguish the holiday hero, Mordechai, from the villain, Haman. Despite the interpretation popular at the last Purim party I attended, this is not just a call to drink heavily. Rather, it invites us to laugh at what we think constitutes good and evil and to reevaluate our moral habits. The diet God ordained for humanity in Genesis was vegetarian (1:29), and, even without kosher pork, a vegetarian diet makes sense on Purim and everyday. Pork: it's what's for Purim. SOURCE |