Eat Not this Flesh: Food Avoidances from Prehistory to the PresentUniversity of Wisconsin Press, 1994 - 550 pages Examines the use and avoidance of flesh foods, including beef, pork, chicken, and eggs, camel, dog, horse, and fish, from antiquity to the present day. Simoons finds that the recurrent theme of maintaining ritual purity, good health, and well-being underlies diet habits. He emphasizes that only a full range of factors can explain eating patterns, and stresses the interplay of religious, moral, hygienic, ecological, and economic factors in the context of human culture. From publisher description. |
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Africa ahimsa ancient ancient Egypt animals anti-pig Asclepius associated aśvamedha Atargatis beef eating believed bones Brahmins Bronze Age Buddhist bull camel camelflesh castes century B.C. ceremonial chickenflesh chickens and eggs China Chinese Christian cock common cattle consumed cult culture deities dog eating domestic pigs early East eat beef eat fish eat pork eaten eaters Egypt Egyptian Eichinger Ferro-Luzzi Europe evidence example fertility fish avoidance fish eating flesh food goddess Gonda Greece Greek groups Hebrews Hindu Hinduism Hittites horse horseflesh horsemeat human impure India Indo-European involved Iran Islam Maasai meat milk modern Moslems numbers observed Palestine pig keeping Plutarch pork pork eating region rejection religion religious reported rites ritual killing role Roman Rozin sacred sacred-cow concept sacrifice sacrificed Seth Simoons slaughter South Southeast Asia Sudan suggests swine symbolic temple traditional trans tribal trichinosis unclean Vedic vegetarian village water buffalo western wild boars women Zoroastrians