What the Bible Says About Healthy Living by Rex M.D. Russell

Author:Rex M.D. Russell [Russell, Rex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Health—Biblical teaching, Health—Religious aspects—Christianity
ISBN: 9781441225634
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2013-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Unclean Water Life

Because the Israelites lived near the Mediterranean Sea and around other bodies of water, God instructed them regarding many forms of sea life:

Of all the creatures living in the water of the seas and the streams, you may eat any that have fins and scales. But all creatures in the seas or streams that do not have fins and scales—whether among all the swarming things or among all the other living creatures in the water—you are to detest (Lev. 11:9-10).

Although Jesus was “the end of the law for righteousness” (see Rom. 10:4), He recognized and called attention to the need to distinguish between good and bad fish. He spoke about unclean fish in a parable of the kingdom of God in Matthew 13:

Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away (vv. 47-48).

It has long been recognized that the meat of shellfish—shrimp, crabs, lobsters, etc.—is especially dangerous. Many illnesses, including instant paralysis, devastate some people every day as a result of eating shellfish.25

The largest cholera outbreak in the United States occurred in Louisiana from August through October 1986. (The symptoms of cholera are explosive diarrhea, leading to rapid dehydration, unconsciousness, hypotension and death.) What did the stricken people eat? The incriminating meals were found to include rice noodles with shrimp, pork, vegetables, mussel soup, pig blood coagulated with vinegar, and salty brine shrimp with mixed vegetables.

Shellfish can be placed in a body of water that is contaminated with cholera bacteria, and they will purify the water. Shrimp, oysters, crab, scallops and mussels are particularly efficient at this. They filter large volumes of water every day. Sewage laden with chemicals, toxins and harmful bacteria, parasites and viruses become concentrated in those shellfish.

The cause of cholera outbreaks in several areas has been traced to contaminated shrimp, crab, oysters and clams. A recent outbreak of cholera in Central America was related to shellfish ingestion. All this led one researcher to say, “By far the single greatest danger posed by seafood is from raw shellfish.”26 The flesh of shellfish is where the disease-causing organisms are found.

Although crabs are the most important vehicle for one strand of cholera infection in the United States, shrimp and oysters from the Gulf Coast are also vehicles of transmission for these diseases.

A case-control study has shown that stricken patients were more likely than neighborhood-control subjects without disease to have eaten cooked crabs or cooked or raw shrimp during the week before the illness.

These findings occur worldwide. In another study, 20 percent of 559 volunteers who were not sick, but who regularly ate shellfish, had serological (changes in the blood indicating exposure to cholera bacteria) evidence of cholera.27 They had apparently been infected by the foods they ate. The volunteers’ natural resistance, or possibly a less toxic strain of cholera bacteria, probably prevented severe symptoms or death.

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