How Does Pork Prepared in Various Ways Affect the Blood?
Written by Beverly Rubik, PhD
October 3 2011
An Investigation via Live Blood Analysis
Traditional preparation of pork involved salt-curing followed by smoking to preserve it, or marinating fresh pork in an acidic medium, usually vinegar, prior to cooking. Yet today some people simply cook fresh pork without giving any particular attention to traditional methods of preparation. How does consumption of these various preparations of pork affect the blood?
In this report, we examine three adults who normally eat a traditional Weston A. Price Foundation (WAPF) diet who participated in a pilot study to ascertain the effects of eating pork on the blood. These volunteers came to the laboratory once a week to consume pork prepared in various ways and to have their blood examined before and after eating it. Microphotographs of their blood show unexpected results. ....
CONCLUSIONS
1. Consuming unmarinated cooked pastured pork produces blood coagulation and clotting in blood examined at five hours after eating; however, consuming marinated cooked pork does not produce any blood coagulation or clotting.
2. Consuming processed forms of pastured uncured pork, including bacon and prosciutto, does not produce any blood coagulation or other visible changes in the blood at five hours after eating.
3. Consuming unmarinated cooked pastured lamb does not produce any blood coagulation or other visible changes in the blood at five hours after eating.
4. No changes in white blood cell activity, white blood cell clumping, crystals, microbes, or spicules (indicating liver stress), were found before or after consumption of all five preparations of pork and lamb.
The results suggest that unmarinated cooked pastured pork may be unique in producing these coagulation effects on the blood, which also appeared quite rapidly, in less than ten minutes after blood draw, and did not clear up during an hour of observing the blood under the microscope.
The early blood coagulation and clotting observed after consuming cooked unmarinated pork are adverse changes in the blood. A shorter blood coagulation time is associated with increased systemic biochemical inflammation as well as the possible formation of blood clots in the body, as in heart attack or stroke. This condition in the blood, if chronic, is associated with increased risk of chronic degenerative disease, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, autoimmune disorders and others.2
What is it about unmarinated cooked pork that may produce biochemical inflammation and early blood clotting? A literature search revealed use of pork in the Materia Medica of ancient China. In Chinese medicine, “pork has the medical properties of being bitter, somewhat cooling, and slightly poisonous, and was used for chronic madness.”3 Yet pork is the most common meat consumed in China, indeed throughout Asia. Usually it is marinated in vinegar before it is cooked; pickled pork is also a common dish throughout Asia.
It is well known that allergies cause unwanted inflammation. Is this a possible link? In modern medicine, meat allergies are rare in adults, typically outgrown during the first few years of life.4 Those who are allergic to pork are typically sensitive to pork serum albumin.
There is also an interesting link that has been found between sensitivity to pork meat and cats, as these two allergies are frequency associated, suggesting a crossed allergenicity.5 That is, those with allergy to pork frequently have respiratory allergies to cats. However, in this study, the subjects were allergic neither to pork nor cats. In searching the modern scientific and medical literature for clues, nothing was uncovered that might explain the results of this study.
What is most notable, however, is that the results demonstrate the wisdom of traditional food preparation. The processing of pork in customary ways by salts and acidic marinades makes pork safe for consumption— not only by inactivating parasites, killing off noxious bacteria that may cause food poisoning, and promoting safe fermentations in the meat that add flavor; traditional processing of pork also seems to prevent the inflammatory and blood clotting effects as observed here through live blood analysis, although we do not know why. We speculate that raw pork contains a toxin, unidentified to date, and that heat alone from cooking cannot destroy it, but that fermentation with salt, and also acid plus heat, do so. This toxin in pork, if it exists, is therefore heat-stable and requires further denaturation by salt or acid in order to detoxify it. This is exactly what traditional pork preparation provides.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This study was supported in part by a small grant from the Weston A. Price Foundation.
REFERENCES
1. Rodriguez-Canul, R.; Argaez-Rodrigues, F, et al. (2002) Taenia solium Metacestode Viability in Infected Pork after Preparation with Salt Pickling or cooking methods common in Yucatan, Mexico. Journal of Food Protection 65(4):666-669.
2. Rubik B (2009) Pilot Research Study: Live Blood Analysis of Adults Comparing the Weston A. Price Foundation Diet and the Conventional Modern Diet. Wise Traditions in Food, Farming, and the Healing Arts Vol 10(4): 35-43.
3. Lo, V; Barrett, P. (2005). Cooking Up Fine Remedies: On the Culinary Aesthetic in a 16th Century Chinese Materia Medica. Medical History 49:395-422.
4. Restani, P; Ballabio, C; Tripodi, S; Fiocchi A. (2009) Meat Allergy. Current Opinion in Allergy and Clinical Immunology 9(3): 265-269.
5. Drouet, M; Boutet, S; Lauret, MG; Chene, J; Bonneau, JC; Le Sellin, J; Hassoun, S; Gay, G; Sabbah, A. (1994) The Pork-Cat Syndrome or Crossed Allergy Between Pork Meat and Cat Epithelia. Allerg Immunol 26(5):166-8.
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