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Hack this article about the dangers of pork by the Jaminets

Ok, now that the 3rd installment of this series is up, can anyone provide some perspective on his conclusions on pork. Comments on his blog seem to amount to "see, pork will kill you for sure." Must be a bit more nuanced than this, yes? It seems illogical that periodically eating pork would be toxic in the context of a varied whole foods diet.

Helpful to read this earlier post on the subject: http://paleohacks.com/questions/96386/hack-this-article-about-the-dangers-of-pork-by-the-jaminets#axzz1nQDGLTqe

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closed as exact duplicate by Bread-Eating Beelzebub Feb 25 2012 at 19:14

2 Answers

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Summary (from all three installments)
There's a fairly high correlation between pork and liver cirrhosis. Most probable suspect appears to be Hepatitis E. Processed pork (smoked, cured, salted) seems safer than unprocessed. Avoid organ meats (pork liver especially) and products made with organ meats (pork patés and some sausages).

TLDR
BACON is good!

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 How to explain the long lived Okinawans who eat a lot of pork. Is there high incidence of liver cirrhosis in this population of people who live long lives? – Porkeys revenge Feb 25 2012 at 13:56
Extrapolating from Paul's answers to a couple comments on the most recent post, I get the feeling that as long as you're eating healthy (Paleo, Primal, PHD - and there's no argument the Okinawans eat healthy) your system is going to be strong enough to fight incidental exposure - and that's the premise behind PHD, keep your system strong, provide it with the nutrients it needs to fight off infection (maybe Iodine from sea vegetables is the Okinawans' secret?), and keep blood sugar low so you're starving the pathogens. – cerement Feb 25 2012 at 17:36
Okinawan's don't eat that much pork. It's a myth. They eat more fish than pork. – Namby Pamby Feb 25 2012 at 19:54
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"Comments on his blog seem to amount to "see, pork will kill you for sure." Must be a bit more nuanced than this, yes?"

Yes, it is more nuanced than your hyper-generalization. Shocking. I think his 3rd post speaks for itself. Pigs have a biologic similarity to human (organs can often be substituted in transplants for instance) and it stands to reason (according to Jaminet) that pig viruses could survive poor preparation and transfer into humans.

Seems reasonable to me. Not sure it will affect my consumption of bacon and ham.

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