Religious Food Taboos

For this essay, I read articles pertaining to religious food taboos, food in feasts and fasts, and an interview promoting religious pluralism. One article from eNotes.com discusses why certain foods may be taboo, such as unfavorable geographic conditions and societal differences, among others. I feel this will help me explain why some foods are sacred while others are forbidden. Another article on the same site discusses food in religious celebration and observation; feasting and fasting. eNotes advertises itself as a resource used daily buy researchers, teachers, and students; while it has a lot of good information I realize the need to dig even deeper. I read an interview on Dowser, a news site reporting on social innovation, with Eboo Patel by Rebecca Robinson in which Patel discusses promoting religious plurality in America. Patel, who grew up Muslim in the United States, is familiar with faith based tension. In 1998, he founded the Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC) to promote religious pluralism. In 2009, he was one of 25 advisers selected for President Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships as well as being named one of America’s best leaders by U.S. News & World Report. Dowser’s motto is “Who is solving what and how?”(Dowser)

In the first article “Taboos” I learned how and why some foods are viewed as forbidden in a religious aspect. The article further explains that many of the reasons behind such taboos boils down to people’s emotional relationships with some animals, and how some foods are viewed as unfit for consumption because they are unknown known to a culture, and how some foods, while not generally allowed, are consumed by those who migrate to other areas. For example, the Muslim relig...

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...; I have a plethora of good, yet ultimately useless, for the purpose of this paper, information. I feel if I narrow it down further and focus on two religions, Christianity/Catholic and Islam/Muslim, and compare them in as many ways as I can without drifting to either extreme. My ultimate goal is to provide a paper which develops a yin-yang type philosophy; celebrating similarities and acknowledging and respecting differences.

Works Cited

Robinson, Rebecca. Interview with Eboo Patel, on promoting religious plurality in America. Dowser, 14 February, 2011. Web. 23 July 2011.

"Feasts, Festivals, and Fasts." Encyclopedia of Food & Culture. Ed. Solomon H. Katz. Vol.1. Gale Cengage, 2003. eNotes.com. 2006. Web. 21 Jul, 2011

"Taboos." Encyclopedia of Food & Culture. Ed. Solomon H. Katz. Vol. 3. Gale Cengage, 2003. eNotes.com. 2006. Web 21 Jul, 2011