Moral Teachings of Islam 10 – Diet Pork Medical Aspects

In the Name of God, the benevolent the Merciful, the creator and the Sustainer of the universe, peace and blessings upon his servant and messenger Muhammad forever. I mean, I bear witness that there is no god worthy of worship except the one true God. And I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger and servant of God, I greet you all of the viewers of the Islamic focus program with the universal greetings of peace, the greeting that have been used by all of the profits from Abraham to Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon them all. Assalamu Aleikum, which means peace be unto you. In today's program, we have our 10th program in our series on the moral teachings of Islam.

More specifically, we'll be continuing with our discussion of the prohibition against a prohibition of eating of pork and Islam. We'll be looking at the chemical and medical reasons for this prohibition. I have joining me on the program today as usual. Dr. Jamal Badawi of St. Mary's University, brother Jamal Assalamu alaykum Monica.

Last week, we begin our discussion of this very interesting topic. And we talked about the some of the reasons behind the prohibition of pork. And could you perhaps, just quickly go back and summarize to highlight the main points that we touched on in our program last week, okay, I think was basically five areas that we discussed, first of all, and discussion of some of the verses in the Quran, which specify the prohibition of eating pork. And we said in one of those verses in chapter six, the impression is left that it is not only prohibited for Muslims, but that it has been a universal prohibition in office. This was confirmed when we looked at some aspects of the

comparative question here. And we refer to the Old Testament and we found that especially in Leviticus chapter 11, verses seven and eight in the book of Isaiah, chapter 65, verse 466, sever, 17, and all of this, we seem to find a very clear and decisive prohibition about eating pork in the Old Testament. And we said simply, the doctrine of being the last revelation of God

was revealed to Prophet Muhammad as this laws was revealed before to Moses and Jesus peace be upon them. And as such, it simply confirmed the universal prohibition of pork.

A question was, is also about the New Testament, and as to why some Christians, for example, justify eating that. And we discussed that from the point of view of the

writing of a Christian priest, that we discussed his book last time,

the hog, should it be used for food, and as a Christian scholar himself, he quotes and discusses this issue is that there is no evidence whatsoever in the New Testament that this thing has been made permissible and that as Jesus peace be upon him said, he came up to the story, the law of profit he came to fulfill, he discusses in some details, those kinds of explanations. I added to that also some of the historical aspects and the, the dream of St. Peter's and he said that this could not be taken as a legislative basis to validate eating pork.

And then we started discussing the reasons behind it. And we set for the believer, we really believe in God and trust in Him. The fact that God forbid that in itself suffices. But God does not also want us to accept things dogmatically. So there is no restriction, at least from the Muslim point of view about research and finding out some reasons, provided that those reasons would not be the condition of precondition for accepting commands of God and obeying him. And he said, we get a hint from the Quran, at least partly, when it describes hanji or pig as rich, unclean or dirty with it. We said there must be some good reason because there is nothing whatsoever that is restricted in

Islamic dietary laws, unless it has a very good reasons whether we have fully understood it or not, as we have seen in the previous programs.

And finally, the last question was whether the pig is the same like other animals that may eat cells. Instead, there's a big difference, because the pig has only one stomach. So there is there isn't much lengthy process of refinement and purification of food in three hours, it is all digested. Whereas in other animals like chicken, you have two stomachs, the glandular and the gizzard, and other cat eating animals you have three stomachs that the digestive

process is much longer and purifies food a lot better.

Okay, well now looking at the question of the pig and the points made about eating garbage and so on, what about the situation where its its food could be controlled. With that improve its feeding habits,

what you could possibly isolate the pig, but you can never really change. Its very nature. Just amaze me with one interesting statement made by Reverend voris. He says that the naturally filthy hug could be forced into the most sanitary conditions, nourished upon delicacies, cake, pie, and heavenly hash. And still, it would be unfit for food mainly because God said he is unclean to you have their flesh shell you're not that's from, you know, a Christian

priests point of view. Well, like I said, whatever you do to the the pig, you cannot change its basic habits with even it's on the fuse, doesn't find something fancy to defeat ons, it's just the nature of it.

But in addition to this, there is no reason again for the farmer raising pigs to avoid feeding the fence because economically speaking, it's a garbage eater, even in a scientific book called modern biology,

which is a common book taught in a variety of high schools and universities.

There's a picture there that shows

the kind of feeding that's given the pigs is men holding a barrel and just putting down the waste the garbage. So they by its very nature, the pig is simply a garbage eater, as we called it last time, scavenger. But this is not the only thing of course. Because, as well, as the program and for unfolds, we will see that there are a lot of chemical and medical

reasons why it shouldn't really be regarded as fit for food. And before we go into those chemical arguments that could be made one or perhaps you could explain the main arguments against the park from the biochemical point of view.

Well,

before I start that, I'd like first to give acknowledgement to

a very useful booklet on the subject.

And this one is written by Dr. Ahmed sucker. It's called pork, possible reasons for its prohibition. Dr. Sacra is a specialist in the nutrition and food technology. And he served as Professor and chairman of the Department of Chemistry and nutrition at the National

chiropractic, chiropractic University in Illinois.

So, I tried to compile some charts to indicate some of the various chemical aspects of it. But to put it in

a brief way, before we go into details,

even though it is difficult to digest excessive amounts of fat, any excess fat of any animal pig or otherwise is

has possible harm to the human. But we will see that the pig fat in particular is very, very harmful and very, very difficult to digest. And to burn. It is something that relates to the chemical structure of the fat molecule just to put it in the simplest and most straightforward

form. Could you go on and explain this a little bit explain why this is. So what

is a chart which like I said, is just a modification or based on the the book by Dr. Sacra.

In this chart here we have first of all the

classification or the general classification of the types of fats and oils. This doesn't include all of them, but just some of the more common ones.

We're using some abbreviation here. For example, the first one p L, stands for phosphor lipids lipids means simply fat, phospholipids

glyco, lipids,

neutral lipids, and then we have waxes and steroids.

Our main concern there are others of course, as I said before, but our main concern really when you talk about diet

Are the neutral lipids, so called

neutral lipids may take any of these forms. Again, we're using abbreviations mg stands for monoglycerides

diglycerides

try glyceride and free fatty acids, these are the various forms of the,

of the util lipids.

These forms are among all of these forms the one the one that really is of particular interest when we study the question of digestion is the triglyceride or tg as we use in this particular chart, this is the the one that we have really to look into very closely. What could you explain why, the reason for focusing on on the triglyceride why it is so important. The reason behind is that by looking into the structures, the chemical structure of the triglyceride, which is mainly really a fat molecule, by looking into that structures, and see how the fatty acids are distributed, in which pattern they are distributed, we will be able to make some inferences or chemists chemists, in fact

make inferences as to how that relates particularly to the process of, of digestion. For example, if you look here in the second part

of the chart,

the each try glyceride molecule or you could say a fat molecule simplified is actually composed of

glycerol

and three fatty acids.

three fatty acids There are all kinds of fatty acids, but that's why it's called triglycerides, it has three of them three combinations.

The fatty acids are divided or codified into two basic groups.

saturated fatty acids, we're using s for that, and unsaturated fatty acids.

Moving on, just to explain that further, to the second chart, that we have here,

we have also the distribution

of the various fatty acids or the various forms it takes in the triglyceride molecule.

When we look at this chart, the numbers one two and three.

This one's yes on the left hand side of the chart, what does signify what this are used to refer to what kind of position one, position two and position three, these are simply the way

that the structure

is distributed or the pattern of distribution of various acids in the triglyceride molecule, the order in which they are put. For example, if you look at the first one, here, you have all three use you you you are both in position one, two, as well as three.

This means then that in the triglyceride molecule or the fat molecule, you have unsaturated fatty acids in position one, and two, as well as three. In the next one, for example, you have saturated fatty acids in position one, unsaturated into unsaturated, and three, and so on. So we have here a total of eight different combinations of how the these various essence are distributed within the the

triglyceride molecules.

You notice here I there's one thing that I tried to make in this chart to make it a little easy to follow. You notice here that I tried to put the four forms of triglyceride molecules

which has the unsaturated fatty acids in position two on one side, and the one that has saturated fatty acids in position two in a separate group, even though these are various legitimate forms of the trade Get aside molecule.

I wonder if perhaps you could explain what the problem is of having s or or saturated fatty acids in the in the particular position number two. Well, the reason behind that is that in order to digest the fats that we eat, not in order to break it down the

fats are the tri glyceride molecule,

it must be broken into much simpler forms in the human

digestive system, it has to be broken, for example, down into monoglycerides diglycerides.

three fatty acids get a straw so that it could be absorbed easily.

This process is called by biochemist a process of hydrolysis. hydrolysis.

This process of hydrolysis is facilitated by a special secretion that comes from the human pancreas. It's called pancreatic lipase, just to help break down

the scientists have discovered that this secretion the pancreatic life is cannot easily hydrolyze or break down the triglyceride molecule or the fat molecule into the simpler components or simpler forms if the

position to in the structure of the molecule has saturated fatty acids. In other words, you could have two different kinds of try gas right molecule. One of them has saturated fatty acids in position two, the other one has unsaturated. And we said that in the digestive process, if it has unsaturated fatty acids in position to it's easier to digest, if it has saturated in position to it is very, very difficult to digest. And the main problem to come to your question is that

experiments showed that the big fat follows that particular structure where

saturated fatty acids are in position to in fact, it is exactly this one, us you. So you have saturated fatty acids in the second position. And as such, it's very difficult for the pancreatic like us to digest. Now this problem of digestion isn't unique to the to the fat that come from the pig, or does it apply to other animal fats as well, things that we consume, like for example, fat from from beef, fat, or sheep that are that kind of? Well, to start with, we cannot say that the particular this particular structure of the triglyceride molecule or the having saturated fatty acids in position two is absolutely unique to the pig. But in fact, some studies were conducted on

some meat eating animals, not as the carnivorous animals.

And it was found that like the pig, they have a high concentration of saturated fatty acids in position to but what animals they were experimenting with cats, dogs, rats, and techspace. This is what

this means then, like we said before the destruction of the of the molecule itself, the fat molecule

in this meat eating elements are is very difficult to digest. So the pig is similar to them in that sense. But on the other hand,

other experiments were conducted on edible animals, that's the vegetarian animals plant eating are the some call them herbivorous animals, including things like sheep, cattle, cannas, deer, and goat. Unlike the first group, it was found that generally speaking, in this animals, there is a high concentration of saturated fats in position two, which means by implication, then, that this type of structure, it's a lot easier to manage to digest, but it's very difficult in other meat eating animals and strange enough, and the tick which really

places the pig, more or less in the classification of an edible or non edible animals, at least from the chemical standpoint.

And if the if lard or the fat from the pig is not digested properly and what happens to it when when you take it into your system and when it goes into the industry, what happens to it is that it is absorbed as is.

You see when we take fat as diet, it goes into our bloodstream and then it's deposited in the human tissues. Now, in the case of plant eating animals, vegetarian animals, when you take this fat

breaks down, it's digested, and it goes into the bloodstream. And then it is resynthesized in the form of human fat, so it doesn't accumulate as animal fat and human fat and then deposited in the tissues. Whereas, when it's not absorbed like that, when it's difficult to break down, like the case of the pig fat, and other meat eating elements, this kind of fat is absorbed as is

and accumulates in the tissues. That reminds me with one thing that you were mentioning last time after the program when you said, You are what you eat. So, you know, imagine person accumulating a lot of,

of animal fat in his body, this is shown here in the diagram. For example, we said here that in the first four

forms of triglyceride molecule, or fat molecule, this word consistent with plant eating animals, that because they all have unsaturated fatty acids in position to they are in terms of digestion, are very easy to digest.

It is deposited in the human as human fat. Whereas in the others categories here where you have saturated fatty acids in position to this was more consistent as a structure generally speaking with meat eating animals, including the pig digestion, in that case, as we have shown, it's very difficult, in fact, is the positive, the positive as as animal fat. But there's something really that's even more fascinating in this whole thing is that when you really look in this chart, like I said before, among the animals used in that experimentation, that is, the ones that are easy to digest, that are resynthesized, as fats in human in human form, include poultry, beef,

sheep, things like dish, this is not an exhaustive list. On the other hand, the other type, which is difficult to digest, include dogs,

cats,

rats, and pigs fixed. So that's the point I was saying earlier, it doesn't really belong to edible animals, not we're not talking about strict scriptures, with scriptures in the Old Testament, or confirmation, the New Testament or the Quran, the last average, but even on purely scientific classification, at least insofar as the issue of digestion of fast, generally speaking, it doesn't really belong.

But there's one area of confusion

that I'd like to ask if you can clarify for me now, I think, chemically speaking, you've been able to demonstrate quite convincingly how lard is very difficult to digest. But sometimes people have the submitted correctly, that learn is is better, because of the fact that it has a high percentage of unsaturated fats? Could you perhaps just comment on that, and maybe clarify the confusion there between the menopausal metaphor, mountain saturated versus the problems with digestion? Okay, I can try to clarify that, again, as simply as I could, as a layman, I'm glad at least that I'm not a chemist, I'm referring to authorities. So maybe I can understand the most viewers

approach and understanding the subject. This also has been treated in the in this book here by Dr. Sachs on the pork and various reasons for its prohibitions.

But it seems that there is a big mix up between whether the fat you consume is saturated, or unsaturated, on one hand, and between the specific structure of that fat, the chemical structure of the fat molecule.

If you refer back to the chart, I mentioned earlier, for example, that the, the big fat follows this particular pattern here.

In terms of the molecule structure, we have u, s, u.

So it's true, yes, there's more

concentration of unsaturated fats in the big, fat, but ways in which position

exactly in positions one, and two. But the crucial position for the purpose of digestion, as we said before, is position to position to because that's, that's the position where if you have saturated fatty acids, it is very, very difficult like we said before the for the pancreatic lipase to break down the fat molecule into simpler form and

Such make the digestion easy.

So in other words, yes, you have a lot of unsaturated

fatty acids, and the pig fat, but the most crucial position is saturated and still it doesn't help really much in the terms of digestion. So it's the structure rather than the percentage

of unsaturated or saturated fatty acids. Okay, well, I like to just move away from this for a moment to another aspect of the possible harms that could come from eating pork. And that has to do with the Medical viewpoint, I want to prompt you to comment on on this medical aspect. Well, in generally speaking, we can say that there are a number of germs, bacteria, and parasites, which infest the pig and live in its flesh.

But the most dangerous of this is the chicken or chicken Allah as another place to get into it, which is a kind of round worm.

Here's a chart which shows the various stages in the development of the chickens in the infested pig.

Those chickens are

encapsulated, usually in a form of tiny cysts, where they concentrate there.

As we see here, in the first figure of that diagram,

when a person eats or consumes infested meat,

what happens that when it goes through the digestive system, the juices that we have in the digestive system breaks down or digests the capsule or the cyst, which contains the larva.

As a result, the larva is freed out of that a shell or capsule.

Now, after the larva is released, it gets developed or grows in full adulthood as is shown here in the second part of the chart. In figure two, it becomes an adult larva it meets and then it produces the microscopic larva, estimated as at nearly 1500, young one per worm. So you can imagine the devastating effect it has then digested it goes into the bloodstream through the intestine walls.

Once it enters the bloodstream, it keeps going until it gets out of the blood vessels into human muscles, where it find a permanent residence.

For itself.

This residence could be a muscle of a heart, it could be a muscle brain time subset, it could possibly also be a muscle of a brain or nervous system, resulting in very, very serious type of

ailment. According to a book called human in ethology, by first, he says that the larva

in capsulated, or calcified could be viable for as long as six years.

In terms of its potential

harm.

This is just a brief indication of it I suppose that

our time is getting close if you wish to carry on on that next time, but I think we have to leave it till the next time. I just want to say that this has been a very important program for me I found various thing and I trust that the viewers of the program have also found it educational and interesting. Our time for the day is gone. We want to invite you back next week we will continue our discussion. Thank you for watching Assalamu alaikum peace BMT