<story><title>Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)</title><url>https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0219303</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>daniel-cussen</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s the racial component as well.&lt;p&gt;For instance Spaniards (ethnic Visigoths) have near-total immunity to bad pork, whereas Jews (Jewish Diaspora, ethnic Jews) are very vulnerable.&lt;p&gt;Think of it this way:  if there was a public service announcement by the early Jews, where would they write it down?</text></item><item><author>nivertech</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve read a medical research paper about the resurgence of some nasty parasitic disease in Israel with the breakdown by religious community[1]. Turns what? The stricter the dietary laws for the community were - the less infections occurred.&lt;p&gt;And we&amp;#x27;re  talking about sheep here, which is similar in size to pig. There are might be a confounding variables here though, i.e. some communities are mostly urban, others are more rural ones. Or maybe sheep meat is less popular among less infected. Or maybe the animals were smuggled from the &amp;quot;West Bank&amp;quot; which is endemic, and veterinary control services are not strict there if existing at all.&lt;p&gt;--&lt;p&gt;[1] they used 4 different religions there, but I won&amp;#x27;t name them in order to not offend anyone.</text></item><item><author>sigmoid10</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s still not economical to test e.g. every single pig for roundworms, especially since they do not create clinical symptoms in these hosts and a direct test is rather expensive. But they can pose a significant risk to humans who eat undercooked pork and in the past about 5 percent of Americans were estimated to be infected at any given time. This has only gone down thanks to modern production standards that eliminate or drastically reduce exposure to wild animals that may transmit the disease. Compared to farm animals it&amp;#x27;s actually pretty easy to contain insects in an environment where they can&amp;#x27;t get infected with foreign pathogens, since people don&amp;#x27;t really care about freely roaming larvae.</text></item><item><author>nivertech</author><text>Larger animals can be inspected individually to find pathogens or diseases.&lt;p&gt;Insects are so small that it&amp;#x27;s practically impossible to inspect each individual organism. You can do sampling of the batch, but the odds of missing bad ones are still high.&lt;p&gt;Same with the fruits and vegetables, some are easy to inspect, others are almost impossible, or impossible to clean. There are kosher (insect-free) versions of lettuce and some berries which are much more expensive than non-kosher ones.&lt;p&gt;Lastly, disgust is a part of the human immune system. Religious dietary laws and cultural taboos are probably partly developed from disgust, and partly from trial-and-error.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nivertech</author><text>That&amp;#x27;s not racial immunity, it&amp;#x27;s probably an alcohol-induced &amp;quot;immunity&amp;quot; or resistance.&lt;p&gt;Visigoths probably drunk much more alcohol than Jews, which is a good disinfectant. In the old times it was even part of the soldier rations in some armies.&lt;p&gt;Some Visigoths converted to Islam and migrated to Morocco, but even after their conversion they still had a reputation of heavy drinkers.&lt;p&gt;For 10 years I was a pescetarian, until one time I tasted a beef carpaccio, and it was both edible and tasty (before that I wasn&amp;#x27;t even thinking about meat as a food). So I started eating raw meat dishes like steak tartar, but I always drunk a shot of something strong for safety, until one day I understood that it&amp;#x27;s unnecessary.</text></comment>
<story><title>Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)</title><url>https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0219303</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>daniel-cussen</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s the racial component as well.&lt;p&gt;For instance Spaniards (ethnic Visigoths) have near-total immunity to bad pork, whereas Jews (Jewish Diaspora, ethnic Jews) are very vulnerable.&lt;p&gt;Think of it this way:  if there was a public service announcement by the early Jews, where would they write it down?</text></item><item><author>nivertech</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve read a medical research paper about the resurgence of some nasty parasitic disease in Israel with the breakdown by religious community[1]. Turns what? The stricter the dietary laws for the community were - the less infections occurred.&lt;p&gt;And we&amp;#x27;re  talking about sheep here, which is similar in size to pig. There are might be a confounding variables here though, i.e. some communities are mostly urban, others are more rural ones. Or maybe sheep meat is less popular among less infected. Or maybe the animals were smuggled from the &amp;quot;West Bank&amp;quot; which is endemic, and veterinary control services are not strict there if existing at all.&lt;p&gt;--&lt;p&gt;[1] they used 4 different religions there, but I won&amp;#x27;t name them in order to not offend anyone.</text></item><item><author>sigmoid10</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s still not economical to test e.g. every single pig for roundworms, especially since they do not create clinical symptoms in these hosts and a direct test is rather expensive. But they can pose a significant risk to humans who eat undercooked pork and in the past about 5 percent of Americans were estimated to be infected at any given time. This has only gone down thanks to modern production standards that eliminate or drastically reduce exposure to wild animals that may transmit the disease. Compared to farm animals it&amp;#x27;s actually pretty easy to contain insects in an environment where they can&amp;#x27;t get infected with foreign pathogens, since people don&amp;#x27;t really care about freely roaming larvae.</text></item><item><author>nivertech</author><text>Larger animals can be inspected individually to find pathogens or diseases.&lt;p&gt;Insects are so small that it&amp;#x27;s practically impossible to inspect each individual organism. You can do sampling of the batch, but the odds of missing bad ones are still high.&lt;p&gt;Same with the fruits and vegetables, some are easy to inspect, others are almost impossible, or impossible to clean. There are kosher (insect-free) versions of lettuce and some berries which are much more expensive than non-kosher ones.&lt;p&gt;Lastly, disgust is a part of the human immune system. Religious dietary laws and cultural taboos are probably partly developed from disgust, and partly from trial-and-error.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>exhilaration</author><text>This sounds pretty absurd and I can&amp;#x27;t find anything on Google about native Spaniards having any kind of special immunity to &amp;quot;bad pork&amp;quot;, specifically pork tapeworm or any of the other common pig parasites.  So if you&amp;#x27;ve got some links I&amp;#x27;d love to read more.</text></comment>