Jehovah's Witnesses eat blood without thinking about it

How about this? Are Jehovah's Witnesses allowed to eat the widely used E120 or Carmine that is made of insect blood. It is the whole insect including its blood that is used and if you crush a living Cochineal insect you will see its red blood color, I've seen that done on a program on BBC where they also refer to the red as the insect's blood. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00tkzb3

And how about some fishes like smelt that are eaten without draining the blood? Do you know any other cases?

I would love to send this as a question to the GB.

Ever eat rare steak? Oh that sweet juicy goodness Just don't call it blood because it's only juice and not blood, right.

diamond-   yes, If a Witness has been eating Big Macs since childhood they've consumed a few buckets of blood.

Its just in meat, you would have to blanche it white and then there would still be micro amounts of blood in meat.

whats all this about eating bigmacs?

Don't be scared we aren't vampires   

Residual blood in meat is not the issue. It is the act of "pouring blood onto the ground" i.e the symbolic gesture of bleeding the animal that is important.

As for cochineal, I asked about this when I was a child, and was told that it should be avoided, as I tucked into a slice of battenberg cake!!

err--how does one bleed a beetle?

JW15801... welcome!

Interesting 1st post... are you on the fence because of a recent issue involving blood transfusions?

Insects contain a fluid called hemolymph, which is not the same as blood, and it does not circulate in insects the same way blood does in other animals. The only red blood found in any insects (e.g. mosquitoes) comes from other animals from which they've extracted it, not the insects themselves.

The red colour from cochineal comes from carminic acid (which the insects use to deter predators; C₂₂H₂₀O₁₃), and has nothing to do with blood. It is not chemically similar to any of the four kinds of heme—the red stuff in blood—C₄₉H₅₆O₆N₄Fe, C₃₄H₃₂O₄N₄Fe (most common), C₃₄H₃₆O₄N₄S₂Fe, C₄₉H₅₈O₅N₄Fe.

Alfred, I've fallen off the fence already, just saw the program and thought about how to drain insects from blood. Not that I care myself anymore.

Jeffro, interesting about hemolymph, but did those on the time of the Bible really know the difference? So from a pure standpoint just reading the Bible my interpretation would be that JW should not eat insects without draining them from their fluids and thus E120 is not ok for a purist JW.

Then there are molluscs like snails and seems like they have blood http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molluscs so JW should avoid them too as they are eaten including all.

Jeffro, interesting about hemolymph, but did those on the time of the Bible really know the difference? So from a pure standpoint just reading the Bible my interpretation would be that JW should not eat insects without draining them from their fluids and thus E120 is not ok for a purist JW.

I'm not sure that your personal interpretation of scripture is particularly important to them. Or to anyone else.

In any case, E120 (carminic acid) is nothing to do with blood, and it is entirely unrelated to the function of hemolymph in insects.

Saying carminic acid is blood makes as much sense as saying red paint is blood.

Raw oysters. Their blood is clear.

just reading the Bible my interpretation would be that JW should not eat insects without draining them from their fluids

And... no. Primitive people had no possible method of 'draining insects of their fluids', but the Bible specifically indicates that the Jews could eat grasshoppers and locusts. There is also no prohibition on drinking milk, so there was no broad restriction on 'fluids'.

Many witnesses I know eat game such as deer, rabbit, duck, hare, boar, which is usually not bled out, because they simply don't know or care. They will however let themselves and their children bleed to death in a hospital bed.

Idiots.

I even once had a witness tell me over the restaurant table "Oh well even if there is blood in it, I will send an extra prayer tonight."

Hmm.. We would have always avoid game meat like the plague, simply because it has not been bled. The dubs of my past acquaintance certainly would have done the same. Who knows what goes these days?

As for the red liquid in meat, I took this off the net once :

"Red juice in raw red meat is not blood

Today I found out the red juice in raw red meat is not blood. Nearly all blood is removed from meat during slaughter, which is also why you don’t see blood in raw “white meat”; only an extremely small amount of blood remains within the muscle tissue when you get it from the store.

So what is that red liquid you are seeing in red meat? Red meats, such as beef, are composed of quite a bit of water. This water, mixed with a protein called myoglobin, ends up comprising most of that red liquid.

In fact, red meat is distinguished from white meat primarily based on the levels of myoglobin in the meat. The more myoglobin, the redder the meat. Thus most animals, such as mammals, with a high amount of myoglobin, are considered “red meat”, while animals with low levels of myoglobin, like most poultry, or no myoglobin, like some sea-life, are considered “white meat”.

Myoglobin is a protein, that stores oxygen in muscle cells, very similar to its cousin, hemoglobin, that stores oxygen in red blood cells. This is necessary for muscles which need immediate oxygen for energy during frequent, continual usage. Myoglobin is highly pigmented, specifically red; so the more myoglobin, the redder the meat will look and the darker it will get when you cook it."

http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/04

BluesBrother is no expert, so I just pass it on for what it is worth......

As for insects? If I were still defending the J W position I would say that John the Baptist ate locusts in the desert and evidently it was not seen as a violation of the law not to eat blood. Certainly you cannot bleed them...

I believe that Cantleave had it right. The law required the ceremonial pouring out of the venous blood as a symbol, it would never have removed every last drop from the creature, so J W's do not see a need to go to inordinate lengths over it.

The same is true of farm raised salmon which uses cows blood in the feed in order to get the pink color.

the-illuminator81, Every hunter (JW) I've ever known has ALWAYS bled their kill.