Eating reptiles

Of all the animals that walk on all fours, those that walk on their paws are unclean for you; whoever touches their carcasses will be unclean till evening. Anyone who picks up their carcasses must wash their clothes, and they will be unclean till evening. These animals are unclean for you. Of the animals that move along the ground, these are unclean for you: the weasel, the rat, any kind of great lizard, the gecko, the monitor lizard, the wall lizard, the skink and the chameleon (Leviticus 11: 27-30).

The book of Leviticus mentions crocodiles, and includes them in the list of the unclean animals that the Hebrews were not allowed to eat. It is common knowledge that some of these animals were divinised by the cultures surrounding the Israelites, and that there were therefore religious reasons for this prohibition.

Nevertheless, now we also know that essentially sanitary factors were also very important. At that time no one could have known why it was dangerous to eat reptile meat; now, however, we are fully aware of the toxicity of such meat.

People who consume reptile meat, - like crocodiles, turtles, lizards or snakes - are more susceptible to a range of diseases and health problems (trichinosis, pentastomiasis, gnathostomosis, sparganosis, etc.), due to the presence of pathogenic bacteria, especially Salmonella, Shigella, Yersinia, Campylobacter, Clostridium and Staphylococcus.

For that reason, the sanitary authorities recommend that this kind of meat be frozen before being eaten, and that it never be eaten raw, so as to avoid all possible health risks. There is wisdom in the Holy Scriptures which vastly surpasses the knowledge that was available to human beings at the time!

A crocodile can weigh as much as two thousand kilos, but it's brain is no bigger than a man's thumb. Despite this, they are animals that are so well adapted to their habitat that they have never faced the risk of extinction. When they are subjected to an extended period of captivity, some of their organs can become deformed, like the teeth of this specimen which I photographed in the Barcelona zoo.