Milk and Dairy

I believe that God has a reason for everything He has said.  In at least 3 verses, God says you should not cook a kid in it's mother's milk.

The one thing I have the most trouble with is the Jewish/Messianic prohibition of milk and dairy.  Meatloaf is not complete without milky mashed potatoes.  A cheeseburger without cheese? No way!

 I began to research it.  The book I recommended before (Holy Cow! Does God Care About What We Eat?) touched on the subject, and the author made a couple of good points.  However, just like I encourage individual research, I wanted to find out for myself.

I wanted to know why God said it.  What on earth could possibly be wrong with cooking meat and milk together?  Many Orthodox Jews and Messianics refuse to even have them at the same meal or on the same plates.  They're not even allowed on the same table. And what about Abraham?    He served God milk, curds and meat.   If it's so bad, why did he do that?

I also have trouble with blind obedience to the Talmud.  I understand that it was to protect the followers from accidentally going against God's commands.  The Rabbis built a fence or hedge around each command to protect the people.  However, I really feel they went way overboard on some things.    I mean really... two sets of pots, pans and dishes?!  I wish I had that much storage. That would be awesome! :D

A word study showed me that the Hebrew word used for "kid" means any livestock animal used for food.  It doesn't mean just goat.  Numerous resources all said the same thing.  Okay, so any food meat cooked in it's mother's milk.  Several reasons were cited for this.

 One is that pagan festivals used cooking meat in milk for fertility rites and other things.  Historically, Jewish people were to separate themselves so they were not confused with idolaters.   This makes sense, but there is no way of knowing if it is the reasoning behind it.

Another is that we will never know why.  God said it.  We do it.  When we get to Heaven we can drive Him nuts asking "Why, why, why?" over and over like a 4 year old which I fully intend to do.

I became sidetracked by the whole Soy/MSG thing.   In the end, it actually answered part of my question.  I learned that milk, cooked for extended periods of time or for high temperatures, will release high levels of free glutamate.    It makes it's own MSG and it can cause the same reactions in MSG sensitive people.   In fact, MSG sensitive people are told to avoid Ultra-Pasteurized milk products, because the pasteurization causes free glutamates as well.

But again - why meat and milk together?

Going back to Abraham, it's realized that nowhere does it say he served it together.  People just assume it was.  All the bible does is list what Abraham served and that he "placed it before them" and "stood by while they ate".    There is no actual time frame.  We know he told Sarah to make cakes, but that isn't listed.  I think it's safe to assume it was also served.

 It could very well be that he served curds and milk first, like an appetizer, so his guests wouldn't go hungry while waiting for the calf to be slaughtered and cooked.  Sounds like something a good host would do, right?  The digestion time of milk and curds isn't very long.  It's an hour at most, so by the time the calf was ready, God's stomach would've been cleared of dairy, and He would've been free to eat the meat.


However, it doesn't say he didn't serve them together.  To me, it's implied they were served together, but I could be wrong. It also doesn't say what God ate.  Abraham put out the food and let his guest decide what he wanted, and kept them company while they ate.  Also sounds like a good host, doesn't it?


The bible says "they ate".  They could've eaten all of it.  They could've eaten part of it.  There is no way of knowing.

Again, the MSG research came into play.  This time it was how foods react with each other and how food digestion works.   This morning I found research that states meat needs the stomach acid to be digested properly, and that milk neutralizes it causing the meat to not digest as it should.  I accidentally shut the page, and I ran out of time to find it again.   I wanted to know if it was all dairy or just milk and how they came by their conclusions.

/headdesk

I'll look again tomorrow, but I wanted to write this while I was thinking about it.


I will edit this later on as I go further into my studies on this topic.  The only conclusions I have for now are these:

1) The Rabbis went overboard on the separate dishes.  There isn't any logical or biblical reason for it.

2) Nothing in the bible says milk and meat can't be served at the same meal.   Even if God didn't eat milk and meat together, at the very least, He did eat them at the same meal.

3) At most, milk and dairy can't be cooked together.  Meatloaf can't have milk added to it, but you can add milk to the side dish of mashed potatoes.


I'll write more about it another time. I needed to start dinner 20 minutes ago.  At this point in time, hungry teens are definitely more dangerous than milk and dairy together.