Firstly, this is arguing an entirely different thing than blaming deities for getting ill. But the argument is wrong in itself, anyway.
(Which religion is milk banned in, by the way?)
When you say “multiple ancient religions”, I assume you mean the The rules about kosher foods in Judaism, halal foods in Islam, and the Hindu ban on eating beef. So three, not multiple.
But are these rules related to health? I think you’d have a very difficult time proving that. Many have tried and failed.
How come Muslims don’t get ill eating beef in India, and Hindus don’t get ill eating pork in India, if the bans are for health reasons?
How come shellfish and pork were unhealthy in ancient Israel, but not in ancient Egypt or Asia Minor?
Why are rabbits and camels banned in Jewish religious law, but not goats or sheep? Can you explain the health reasons?
How come alcohol is not halal? Is it due to health reasons?
Religious and cultural dietary prohibitions are everywhere, and do not correlate with danger. Why don’t we eat grubs?
I believe that many of these rules originated out of very ancient lifeways no longer in memory, and were strengthened into religious directives out of the need to create cultural identity once groups and tribes began to live adjacent to each other.
For example shellfish are mainly a coastal food source, and as an interior desert people, the Hebrews would find them highly foreign and suspect, the kind of thing their enemies ate.
There was no refrigerators, but rooms full of ice and snow brought down to the mountains existed in multiple locations; leaving things out in the snow (in a protected area so animals couldn’t get to it) was also done.
The nevera (lit. “snow room” back then; now it would mean “fridge”) in Olite castle is outside the castle itself, in a spot that’s always shadowed: it was kept full of snow by the castle and the castle had priority for using it, but it could be used by any of the townspeople.
Your links have only one example, not multiple, relating top food poisoning - ergot and the Salem witch trials. And that is only a theory - one theory among others.
Even more puzzling is who figured out it was safe to eat rotten food - the first people consuming wine, or beer, yogurt, or cheese (blue cheese?). Even fermented dough turned into risen bread.
my theory is that food was sufficiently scarce at times that being slightly rotten was no excuse not to eat it.
Food doesn’t have to be universally scarce for people to eat spoiled food. Food just needs to sometimes be scarce for some people who have spoiled food available.
In this particular case it wasn’t contemporary locals blaming demons or the devil you’re talking about a theory a modern person came up with. Ergotism, as it became known in the 19th century, was known by St. Anthony’s fire during the middle ages. It wasn’t anything new in 1692 and it’s unlikely this was what ultimately caused the witch panic in Salem at that time.
Pork production was banned in the desert Levant because pigs need scarce resources like water. Trichinosis was also and issue, true.
Beef-eating was banned for Hindus because cattle were worth more for milk/dairy production and as beasts of burden than as hamburgers…
What religions ban milk consumption? Don’t mix meat and milk to stay kosher, sure - but I don’t recall the rationale.
Again in desert regions, shellfish from the nearest coast won’t stay fresh when taken inland without refrigeration. So health is a valid tag here.
Genesis 1:29 says, “And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.” Edible fungi and mosses don’t bear seeds. Edible kelp is underwater, not on the face of the earth. Foods are religiously banned for reasons other than health, apparently.
Trichinosis and shellfish toxin correlate with the major Kosher prohibitions , so there’s at least some overlap. And grubs are a staple of people who don’t have a lot of alternatives.
Ever been to rural India? Cows are also valuable for their production of cooking fuel, in a land that has denuded the landscape of trees.
One suggestion was that a neighboring tribe had a delicacy of calf cooked in its mother’s milk; so the Israelites decided that any hint of this sort of mixing was an abomination, embracing a neighbour’s heathen religion.
Another suggestion was that the split hooves and the scales/no scales thing were some anal-retentive fixation on patterns. Which one of these is not like the other ones, which one of these does not belong? Also note that generally we don’t eat carnivores, because they too easily pick up diseases from their prey (and are dangerous to hunt).
The fact that ergotism was known as St. Anthony’s fire is a clue.
“Common wisdom of the time (i.e. the 10th century) held that the sickness was spiritual and that divine intervention could treat it. Special hospitals were set up, manned by monks of St. Anthony of Egypt, famous for his spiritual strength in the face of torment from the devil. The terrible condition was then associated with the saint, and became known as St. Anthony’s fire.”
To refresh your memory, here’s the post which had you demanding “Cite?”:
“Bad health outcomes” covers a lot of ground.
I posted multiple examples of diseases (not just food poisoning) blamed on spiritual influences. There are plenty more. Egyptology is replete with examples.
Check for yourself - don’t just chant “Cite?” and then try to nitpick the evidence when it’s presented to you.
But we are talking about food poisoning specifically, not anything else.
Anyone is entitled to check any cite and see what it says, who said it, how valid it is, and to dispute it. A cite isn’t a magic get-out-of-jail-free card.
I mean, people ate bad food anyway, and you can’t always tell when food has gone bad, but the basic idea that food that’s been sitting too long isn’t good to eat is self-evident, and my guess is that it’s self-evident to most animals that aren’t primarily carrion-eaters. (And presumably specialized carrion-eaters have super-extra-robust immune systems.)
But, did people put all the pieces together? No. I read somewhere that a popular thing in medieval feasts was to roast a peacock and then put it’s (raw, filthy) skin back on it to present a beautiful feathered bird at the table. And also, that a lot of the nobels who were thought contemporaneously to have been poisoned probably died of food poisoning, although how you could tell that today, and what reasoning the author used, I don’t recall.
