shellfish

5 Comments Posted on Health, Spirituality, Storytelling, Uncategorized

No Pork on My Fork: Why I Decided to Go Kosher

I’m not Jewish.  But I am Jew-ish.

If vultures and possums were easy to sell and market to the public, and people enjoyed the way they tasted, would people still eat them? Surely not. Because those are gross animals. (I’m assuming.)

Hard to believe now, but from 2006 to 2008 I lived in a house full of 4 other guys. If a near cliché is needed here, it was the ultimate “bachelor pad”. A house where there was no such thing as “cleaning day”. The big screen TV was always playing in surround sound. The soonest anyone went to bed was around midnight. Cooking food ourselves almost never happened. Christmas lights on the roof and rotted jack-o-lanterns on the porch were not seasonal items, they were constant.

 

The owner of the house, Jared, always had a new “toy” that he exploited for all its worth. First it was a bread machine: “You haven’t had real bread until you’ve had my homemade bread…” A few months later: “Taste this beer- I made this stuff myself with this new kit I bought at CVS.” (I specifically remember him also inventing “twine”, a cross between sweet tea and wine.) But my personal favorite was the fruit juicer. He read to me all 67 benefits of drinking carrot juice from Wikipedia as I had a glass myself of it myself.

Juicing really can be a fun thing. I ended up going to Publix and buying grapes, apples, even a banana (which ultimately caused the juicer to disperse a mucus-looking substance). One day after work I was making a healthy concoction when I looked up at Jared at said, “What if we juiced a ham?” He said it would probably give us nothing but yellow fat water.

That mental image has disturbed me ever since. It also helped me realize I’ve never been a fan of ham anyway. Ham is pretty much an accessory to the main dish. I can’t think of many times in my life seeing ham as the main meat of meal on a restaurant menu, with the exception of places like Cracker Barrel.

I may even go as far to say that ham has become an irrational fear of mine. Just the thought of touching slimy, sliced ham. Sickening, really. But everyone else seems to be cool with ham. So what’s the true issue?

 

I had to accept that one of my destinies in life is to not eat ham. This calling eventually would lead me to learn way more than I or anyone else would want to know, and that knowledge I would gain would be so shocking and unbelievable that those who heard it either A) believed it and acted upon it, B) scorned my stupidity, or C) were intrigued, yet indifferent.

It all started last November when I began going regularly to a hydro colonics specialist in an effort to clear up my eczema. Ultimately, it’s the glorified version of the ancient Egyptian practice of getting an enema. Throughout my many visits, several worm parasites were released from my body. The biggest one was comparable to the size of a human finger. It was clear with a black head.

http://www.ablebodycolonics.com/practice.html

Of course I asked the doctor what caused this. My two summers in Thailand? My visit to a Korean sauna? Nope. The mostly likely cause of a human having parasites in their digestive system is from eating undercooked pork.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cysticercosis

 

While this incident that happened to me is nothing less of disgusting, it does raise a great question: Which is worse, A) to hear someone tell about pork-transmitted worm parasites that were released through something as weird and socially unacceptable as hydro colonics, or B) to go on living knowing that the chances of having the same worm parasites are pretty favorable, yet doing nothing about it?

With some research, I read that at least 1 out of 3 people in America are living with a similar kind of parasites that I had; some sources stated as high out 7 out of 10. But what good are statistics? Eighty-two percent of statistics are made up anyway, right? The proof was in the pudding (pun).

After sharing my personal results with them, I convinced at least 5 other people to see the hydro colonics specialist. Four out of the five had at least one parasite worm (if not several) come out of them. So all but one out of the six people (myself included) had parasite worms. I’m not good at math. But 5 out of 6 (83%) people is much more definite than 1 out of 3 (33%), as prior estimated statistics had predicted.

 

Growing up in a Baptist youth group, I always thought it was funny to hear the youth minister pray over our fast food dinners: “And Lord, we pray You will bless this food to the nourishment of our bodies and our bodies to Your service…” Really? French fries, cheeseburgers, and soda? All that saturated fat, sodium, and sugar? I see why that would be a necessary prayer, but seriously…

Wouldn’t it make more sense not to eat crap? Speaking of eating crap, I think it’s a little ironic that thousands of years ago God instructed the Jews about certain foods they should not eat. He set apart certain animals to serve as the “clean-up crew of the Earth”. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=leviticus+11

They eat the rotting carcasses and/or feces of other animals. In plain English, these scavengers include, but are not limited to pork and shellfish (shrimp, scallops, lobster, crabs). Similarly, there are also catfish which are called “cleaner fish”; they feed off the dead skin and parasites they find on other living fish.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unclean_animals

Is it any coincidence that so many people are allergic to shellfish? (Thanks to Dwight on The Office, many Americans learned that the black vein on the spine of a shrimp is feces in its digestive track.) The scavengers of the sea often have a higher level of mercury, commonly being the main cause of allergies in humans. For me it was hard to look past the wonderful taste of these creatures. But if you are what you eat, and especially if you are what shellfish eat…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shellfish

Going back to those lovable piggies, the more I learned about them the more repulsed I became at the thought of eating one. They are different creatures, physically structured to carry out the task of be custodians of the ecosystem. Pigs have a very high tolerance to toxic substances. They can be bit by poisonous snakes and usually survive.

Instead of toxins traveling through their entire body, they go to the animal’s fat and are stored there. And oddly, they don’t have sweat glands. They are not able to “sweat out” poisons the way most mammals do. Therefore they roll in the mud to cool themselves off. Eventually, humans eat the fat which stored the toxins the pig consumed. What’s really weird is that pork fat, when consumed by humans, remains pork fat, instead of converting to human fat like other animal fats do. It’s hard for me to think of bacon the same way. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig

This is my destiny, to eat like a Jew. My wish for the world is for everyone to continue enjoying sausage, pepperoni, bacon, shrimp, scallops, lobster, crab legs, and catfish as I did for 28 years. But since May 2009, I have chosen to take this whole thing a little too seriously.

http://bible.cc/deuteronomy/14-8.htm

Below is a word from a frenemy. This is one thing I can agree with him on.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJrJkFBEt_c

 

1 Comment Posted on Nostalgia, People, Storytelling, Uncategorized

My Jewish Upbringing

“You’re just another face that I know from the TV show.  I have known you for so very long.  I feel you like a friend.”

– “Turn It On Again” by Genesis

When I was in 6th grade (1992-1993) my friend Chad Mathers was telling me about this funny TV show he had began watching called Seinfeld. He explained that the main character was Jewish. Then he said to me, “You’re Jewish, right? Your mom looks Jewish, so that means you are too.” I replied, “Yeah, I guess I’m Jewish.”

Most of my classmates knew my mom because she was a substitute teacher. And they knew by her physical traits she wasn’t just “American”. She was something ethnic. No one really knew exactly what nationality she was, though. Neither did I. Because I just never thought to question it as a kid.

In fact, I had every reason to believe I was Jewish. My mom was always using words like, “kosher”, “schnozzle”, “finagle”, and “hoopla”. (Though only those first two words are actually Jewish words.) And she always perfectly and naturally handled the family budget- she now works at a bank.

Her parents: My grandfather was 5’ 6”, dark-skinned, curly haired, and had the “schnozzle”. He never used the word “church”- instead he called it “tabernacle”.  The only kind of bread he ever had at his house was Jewish Rye.  He saved most of his money and when he rarely bought a new car, he paid for it in cash. My grandmother is 4” 8”, even darker-skinned, with long black hair. Neither of their accents helped- respectively Kenosha and Buffalo. Seemed Jewish to me.

Most Jews living in America have German last names, often including “sch”, “stein”, “berg”, and “man”. My last name, Shell, is German and was originally spelled “Schel”.

And my family has always been close. Every holiday and birthday was spent together. Meatballs were often a part of the meals. Only they weren’t Matzah balls.

My earliest memory of learning my true heritage was in 9th grade. Evidently it took that long for me to be self-aware enough to question my heritage.  It’s not that I actually thought I was Jewish before, it’s that I didn’t question it.  I just assumed.  But despite all the Jewish clues, I learned I wasn’t all that Jewish. My grandfather (Albert Metallo) was Southern-Italian and my grandmother (Lola Mendez) Central-Mexican. And on my dad’s side, German and English.

But after doing some in-depth some research, I learned there’s a good chance that too of my great-grandmothers were Jewish (Wiseman and Vite), not to mention a Green and an Ullman a little bit further back.

My mom and I in 2004

While I’m fully proud of my actual heritage, I feel more Jewish than I actually am. Thinking back on the last decade, the celebrities that people have said that I look like are all Jews: David Schwimmer, David Arquette, Paul Rudd, Zack Braff, and Ben Savage (from “Boy Meets World”). And I have played Jesus in more church skits and plays than any of my friends, because I always “looked the most Jewish.” I was the obvious choice.

And like the Genesis song “Turn It On Again” talks about, the characters I knew from the movies and TV shows (and even musicians) I watched growing up became like family to me, in a very cloudy, subconscious sort of way.  In particular, as I kid I thought I was Kevin Arnold (Fred Savage) from The Wonder Years.  And in talking to my sister in preparation for this post, I learned that she always thought that too.  We never knew that we both thought that until now.

The Three Stooges. Seinfeld. Friends. Pauly Shore. Bob Saget. Ben Stein. Howie Mandel. Dustin Diamond. Adam Sandler. Andy Samberg. Bob Dylan. Billy Joel. Just a few Jewish people who have surely influenced the culture of my life in some minutely tangible way.

Several years ago I stumbled across an obscure brand of wine that evidently has become my favorite.  The name caused me to think it was German.  But once I read the label carefully, I realized it is wine mainly used for Jewish services.  It’s Manischewitz brand, one of the nation’s leading brand of kosher products.

And this year I officially stopped eating pork and shellfish. Therefore the word “kosher” means something important to me. It means “hot dog I can eat”.

Some Jews actually have no Israeli blood, but they convert to the religion of Judaism. I sort of feel like that somehow. However, the only Jews that believe Jesus is the true son of God are the Messianic Jews.  Clearly put,  I feel like a Gentile (a person is not from the lineage of the nation of Israel) who has converted to Messianic Judaism. Yes, I’m a technical Messianic Jew.