Food Taboos

 

     Among the magical strategies people have used to influence unpredictable and uncontrollable elements of life are the observation of taboos.  Often such rules govern the boundaries of the body, with anxiety focused around, on the one hand, materials cast out of the body such as  excrement and the trimmings of hair and nails and, on  the other, food, drink, and medicine taken into the body.  According to Frazer among taboos none “are more numerous or important than the prohibitions to eat certain foods.” (24)

     One of the most widespread food taboos is that against eating meat.  Often rational bases are provided for vegetarianism, and one may well justify a meat-free diet on the grounds of health or the prudent use of resources, though probably the most common explanation is ethical, based on a reluctance to cause pain to other living things.  This moral objection seems weak, though widespread.  Apart from salt everything we eat is organic, and if one does not kill animals, one kills plants.  Further, carnivorous animals are common and presumably blameless.  The necessity that life can live only on life is clearly encoded in nature and is thus for those of theistic sensibilities part of God’s way and for others simply natural.  Were I to die in an open field, in less than a minute insects would begin to gather to dine on my remains, to be followed by scavengers and immense populations of bacteria.  As long as one breathes, and indeed no less afterwards, the cycle of birth and death is inescapable. 

     Indeed, in general food taboos are fundamentally symbolic rather than functional, more likely to be justified by scriptural mandate rather than by practical motives.  Various degrees of vegetarianism are practiced by nearly all Jains and many Seventh Day Adventists, while about a third of Hindus eschew meat, as do substantial numbers of Buddhists and Sikhs, as well as some Rastafarians, Baháʼís, and members of the Nation of Islam.  Past vegetarian cults include Pythagoreans, Manichaeans, and Mazdakist Zoroastrians [1]. 

     Each of these sects could cite authority for their practice.  Some Christian vegetarians would point to Genesis 1:29–31 and Isaiah 11:6–9 as evidence that God originally prescribed vegetarianism (though their carnivorous confrères might counter with Acts 10:10-15 which seems to declare that no meat is ”unclean”).   Buddhist and Jain traditions are more decisive with explicit recommendation  of a meat-free regime, while the Hindu attitude characterizes a meat-free diet as characteristic of spiritual seekers and Brahmins [2].

     Among the best-known food taboos is the Jewish and Muslim prohibition against pork, based on Leviticus 11:7-8 [3].

And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be clovenfooted, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you.  Of their flesh shall ye not eat, and their carcase shall ye not touch; they are unclean to you. 8 And the swine, because it divideth the hoof, yet cheweth not the cud, it is unclean unto you: ye shall not eat of their flesh, nor touch their dead carcase.

     Though in modern times the threat of trichinosis is often alleged as the basis for the prohinition of pork, this motive is not asserted in antiquity.  Maimonides did seek to rationalize the rule, noting that swine will feed on garbage and even excrement, thus compromising a community’s hygiene standards, but did not mention parasites.  Historians have suggested that pigs were inappropriate and unsupportable in the nomadic pastoral lifestyle of the early Jews and, later, Arabic Muslims [4].

    In the Hebrew scripture the categorization of the animal is the critical point: the hog’s foot is divided in two, yet he does not chew the cud.  The structural rule – exclude the anomalous and exceptional – leads to the proscription  of rabbits, camels, horses, and rodents as well as pigs.  Carnivorous birds such as eagles and vultures are considered unclean as are sea animals that lack scales and fins such as oysters.  Insects are not allowed except for the four kinds specified in Leviticus 11:22.  Clearly the motive is cultural definition with an identity unlike that of neighboring peoples, roughly the same reason that the Satmar Hasidim who live ten miles up the road from my house wear payot as they take to be commanded in Leviticus 19:27. 

     The Muslim avoidance of pork surely imitated the Jewish rule, though most of the kashrut regulations were not adopted.  Condemned in the Koran [5], such meat had played only a small role in the diet of the Arabic-speaking people who first adopted Islam just as pork had been rarely consumed by the Jews.  Thus the rule aided cultural definition while at the same time associating the new cult with the prestige of the older religion without untoward economic consequences.

     The Hindu attitude toward cattle is, in a way, opposite.  While Jews and Muslims find hogs to be unclean, even disgusting beasts, Indians idealize cattle, worshipping Kamadhenu, the divine cow of whom every living animal is an incarnation.  Just as the early Arabic-speaking people did eat pork prior to Muhammed, ancient Indians ate beef.  In fact, beef was a prestigious meat in Vedic times, used for sacrifices and the reception of honored guests [6]. 

     Just as the myth of Abraham and Isaac marks the transition from human to animal sacrifice, the story of King Prithu signals the prohibition of beef while allowing the consumption of dairy products.  The Mahabharata [7] relates how this chakravarti, an idealized king as culture hero, succeeded to power at a time when sacrifices were neglected.  Pursuing the earth in the form of a heifer, he agrees to spare her life in exchange for her life-giving milk.

     Vegetables, too, are proscribed for some.  Certain Hindus avoid onions, garlic, and mushrooms, feeling that such foods are tamasic, that is, they induce inertia and are associated with ignorance [8], making the mind sluggish and retarding spiritual advancement.   

    Food taboos may be taken to elaborate extremes, some of which apply only to certain individuals or certain times.  For instance according to Frazer the Egyptian pharaohs ate no meat but goose and veal while Masai chiefs must restrict themselves to milk, honey and goat liver [9].  In Myanmar a popular poster warns against for apparently innocuous combinations such as jelly and coffee or pigeon and pumpkin which are thought to be dangerous, even lethal [10].      

     Cultural reasons alone explain the reluctance of most Europeans to eat insects or horse meat and of virtually all to eat dogs.  The primary significance of such taboos is always symbolic, though other factors may play a role.  Functions, distinguishing one’s group, health, natural pre-existing diet and economics may each play a role, but the fundamental important of food taboos is magical.  The fragility of such beliefs is suggested by the Hawaiian abandonment of taboos following the Battle of Kuamoʻo in 1819.  The indigenous people had already for several decades observed that foreigners who ignored their taboos suffered no ill effects, but many were still astonished when their royal family publicly flouted rules they had scrupulously observed for generations. 

      If food taboos may vanish rapidly, they have also considerable persistence.  Today, while many people continue to follow the traditional taboos they were taught by their parents, others have adopted new ones, which may be equally superstitious in spite of quasi-scientific justifications.  Those seeking to lose weight may seek to avoid fat, or sugar, or carbohydrates, when in fact what us required, according to most experts, is simply smaller quantities of an ordinary diet.  Salt is considered almost poisonous by some.  Avoidance of gluten is widespread as a glance at American supermarket shelves will confirm.  A genuine intolerance for gluten occurs with celiac disease which affects something like one percent of the population, yet a far greater share of Americans, some estimates suggest one-third [11], irrationally feel gluten is unhealthy. 

     Food taboos are generally symbolic in nature, yet they reinforce social realities like identity identification and differentiation whether one’s in-group is Orthodox Jews or New Age food faddists.  For believers they constitute a visible daily reminder of one’s faith while serving as a placebo to induce well-being.  More easily manageable than some human failings, dietary restrictions have proven satisfying and even therapeutic for many, though their efficacy, like all magic power, is entirely symbolic and psychological.   

 

 

 

 

1.  Pythagoras’ views are represented by Ovid in the Metamorphoses XV 60-142 while the Manichean attitude is contained in St. Augustine’s De Natura Boni. 

2.  See, for instance chapter 8 of the Lankavatara Sutra for a Buddhist source and verse 71 of Digambara Amritachandra’s Puruṣārthasiddhyupāya for a Jain authority.  Hindu reservations about meat are expressed in a number of texts, including the Shatapatha Brahmana and the Chāndogya Upaniṣad. 

3.  Repeated in Deuteronomy 14:8.

4.  See Marvin Harris, "6: The Abominable Pig" in The Sacred Cow and the Abominable Pig: Riddles of Food and Culture (1987). 

5.  See 2:173, 16:115, and 6:145.

6.  The Aitareya Brahmana, Book 7, for instance, provides details about such sacrifices. 

7.  In the Drona Parva (Book 7.69) and the Shanti Parva (29.132).  The story appears as well in the Vayu Purana and elsewhere.

8.  Manu 5.5

9. The Golden Bough, 177.

10.  Anders Sandberg and Len Fisher, “Never eat a Pigeon with a Pumpkin: a model for the emergence and fixation of unsupported beliefs,” presented at the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2023, reprinted in revised form as Chapter 30 in Food Rules and Rituals: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2023, ed. Mark McWilliams, p. 294-306.

11.  “One-Third of Americans Are Trying to Avoid Gluten—But Is It the Villain We Think It Is?,” News and Views (summer 2015), NYU Langone Health.