I hate to enlighten the Christians, but you also should not eat pig according to the Bible. Note all 3 religions are part of the same God and books, you only disagree on who is a prophet. As Christianity went in to northern Europe though, it is one of the rules which was never enforced and then conveniently forgotten.

As to why, I believe it was to do with the pig being willing to naturally eat its own meat, and any other c**p which comes along. This does funny things to the food chain (think when we let cows and sheep eat crushed up bits of their kin).

Back to my original point, as explained to me by educated Muslims who can speak Arabic and read the Koran, they are allowed to wear pig, handle pig, use hearts grown in pigs should the technology allow, but not consume. BTW, the cases referred to as being unable to handle/go near invariably involve muslims from eastern cultures who do not speak arabic and therefore cannot read the Koran and instead rely on a cleric to tell them what to believe (one of the main rules of Islam is to read and speak Arabic so you can read the word of Mohammed yourself and not have someone tell you what he said).

Interesting enough, the Mrs (who is a GP specialising in diet and nutrition) attended a conference today where ham and bacon were singled out as two of the biggest dietary causes of cancer, absolute no-no's.

I'll see if I can find the pork bit in the Koran.

PS I do love a bacon sarnie though, unbeatable.