Kashrut and Health
Rough notes on my comments on the Portion of Shmini and Health
Prompted by " Itzik Hasini", a Chinese teacher of Hebrew
who has been documenting life in China during the virus: I wish we had wise laws such as yours. What is
permitted, what is forbidden to eat. All this would not have happened! Your
Torah is very wise.”
This Shabbat- Parshat Shmini, among other things, has the first
extensive list of permitted and forbidden animals.( Lev 9 and following).
Since we don’t eat bats and pangolins, maybe he Is on to something.
But are we really healthier? Plus and minus-
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From JTA — On the UK Jewish
community: There are about 250,000 Jews in the United Kingdom. They account for
only 0.3% of its population. But the coronavirus has killed 44 known Jewish
victims so far — about 2.5% of the total U.K. tally.
That means British Jews are overrepresented by a factor of eight in
their country’s death toll from COVID-19.
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On the other hand:
In Italy, an epicentre of the new coronavirus outbreak, the death
rate at the end of March stood at a sobering 11%. Meanwhile in neighboring
Germany, the same virus led to fatality rates of just 1%. In China, it was 4%,
while Israel had the lowest rate worldwide, at 0.35%.
Oddities on Jewish Life expectancy
Israel ranked eighth overall with 82.5 years on average, coming
just behind Italy and Iceland. Japan ranked first overall with an average life
expectancy of 83.7 years. The United States had an overall average of 79.3
years.
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Paradox- Wealth does not = health:
"it’s generally accepted that the well-to-do live both better
and longer lives than the poor. Like with other low-income people who eat what
they can afford, rather than what’s good for them, the diet of haredim
(ultra-Orthodox) is said to be less than wholesome. Also, as a group, they
don’t seem to do much physical exercise. Many are obese.
And yet, according to the State of the Nation Report 2015 by the
Taub Center, a leading research institute in Israel, life expectancy among
haredi men is said to be three years higher than in the rest of the male
population. And haredi women live 18 months longer than other women.
[Except when there is a coronavirus epidemic]
Religion?
“ Religious people live four years longer than atheists, study
finds
Abstinence, meditation and social ties may all be a factor in
increased longevity
Alex Matthews-King Health Correspondent -Wednesday 13 June 2018
20:15
Religious people live on average four years longer than their
agnostic and atheist peers, new research has found.The difference between practicing
worshippers and those who were not part of a religious group could be down to a
mix of social support, stress-relieving practices and abstaining from unhealthy
habits, the authors suggest.
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So- let’s go back over a century, in the US, when most Jews were
poor! January 21, 1905 LONGEVITY OF JEWS. JAMA. 1905;XLIV(3):222-223.
doi:10.1001/jama.1905.02500300054010
Abstract
It is claimed that of all classes of New York City's population,
the Jews are the longest lived. Considering the manner in which the majority of
the Jewish population of our great cities live, this is a remarkable showing,
if true. The poorer Jews, as a rule, are rigid followers of the Mosaic law, and
this would indicate to some extent the excellence of the sanitary provisions of
that ancient code. Insurance men, however, it is alleged, while recognizing the
temperance of the Jews as a factor, are inclined to think that this longevity
is a result of natural selection, the weaker elements of the Jewish race having
been gradually eliminated during centuries of persecution. There is still
another possible factor to be considered. For centuries the Jews have become
acclimatized, so to speak, to city life, and therefore may represent the class
most resistant to such environment.
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Not just Jews
The Hispanic paradox, or Latino paradox, also known as the
"epidemiologic paradox," refers to the epidemiological finding that
Hispanic and Latino Americans tend to have health outcomes that
"paradoxically" are comparable to, or in some cases better than, those
of their U.S. non-Hispanic White counterparts, even though Hispanics have lower
average income and education. (Low socioeconomic status is almost universally
associated with worse population health and higher death rates everywhere in
the world.)[1] The paradox usually refers in particular to low mortality among
Latinos in the United States relative to non-Hispanic Whites.[2] First coined
the Hispanic Epidemiological Paradox in 1986 by Kyriakos Markides, the
phenomenon is also known as the Latino Epidemiological Paradox.[3]
[They have fewer fatalities now with COVID]
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How about the next best thing to Jews--7th day adventists
RELIGION 07/31/2014 12:15 pm ET
What Seventh-Day Adventists Get Right That Lengthens Their Life
Expectancy
By Ryan Buxton
Statistics have shown that religion makes people happier, but it
turns out it can help you live longer, too.
In an attempt to “reverse engineer longevity,” Dan Buettner has
spent years researching the parts of the world where people live much longer
than average.. . . but there is one
long-living group stateside. It’s the Seventh-day Adventists, who live an
average of 10 years longer than the American life expectancy of about 79 years.
. . . what Seventh-day Adventists do right. That includes eating a
plant-based diet and having “a social network that reinforces the right
behavior.” Their religious beliefs are also a big help, he said. “They take
this idea of Sabbath very seriously, so they’re decompressing the stress,”
Buettner said. “About 84 percent of health care dollars are spent because of
bad food choices, inactivity and unmanaged stress, and they have these cultural
ways of managing stress through their Sabbath.”
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