The fact that someone eats pork once is not usually going to kill him or her, nor may be if he eats all his life, but the point as far as I am concerned is that the Qur'an does give a reason, it is rijs. What is meant by that? That is is not "pure" for consumption. That is born out by the contrast between pig and other mammals. Cattle fed on grass that people otherwise consume have one creature, at most two per delivery, pigs like dogs, have a lot of them. that may mean nothing or may mean something, but obviously makes the meat of pig very tempting to breed, all is gain, but about quality... Only heavy advertising, when people has the means pushes them to prefer something from the pig to lamb or cow, etc.
From the point of view of health, pig is the first thing usually forbidden for many reasons, like pregnancy. I will not point out inconvenients about pigs, because usually when it is mentionned one gets the same answer that that is muslim propaganda and all that. But popularly and commercially we do get massive propaganda about pig products. There is not a muslim I know who does nto get bored to death being told over and over how much we miss when we do not eat ham, the uncooked kind. Boring, boring, boring. Ham (uncooked) from pig is in taste and consistency and quality not a match by far of equivalent uncooked meat from cow, horse, or goat. But the brainwashing is from cradle to burial. And of course, like pointed out, while you get one little goat from every birth, with pigs you get massively.
Of course there are questions in the way they are raised in the intensive cattle raising. They are not good food, but they are cratures nevertheless who should have a life worth living. Pig raising is not a charity doing but a business and pigs, which in family economies lead a pigs life, in those industries lead a hellish life, like their chicken counterparts. That also should be a concern.
I come from a country where pig is a usual item, but old people tend not to eat it and prefer other meats. In fact in my family, who used to raise pigs for home consumption, as that usage has been given up, very rarely eat pig. It is mostly sausages to be eat cold and industrially prepared with a lot of spices where people still eat. Its good taste in fact comes from the spices and not from the meat, and tastier things can be produced from turkey or goat, the latter the best to my taste.
I think that if the Qur'an goes to the stretch of excluding pig it is because, althouth there are many other animals in the same case, it is the only one that consistently has been part of the economy at large of whole societies and of usual comsumption. Nobody cares for rats or dogs(except a certain race of dog among chinese). There are no farms for dogs or rats, but pigs can be a big chunk of economy and consumption where they are admitted as staple. I do not think it is fit for that and in fact as societies get richer pig is much less consumed. So I do not think the prohibition is in the magical sense that if you eat once you become perverted or so, but that it is not fit to be staple food. I agree with that. And there are people who are not muslims, just diet conscious and do not eat pig as a staple food. For people with health like Rasputin it may mean nothing, but for people who are not particularly resistant, I do not think that it should be recommended or considered just as healthy as anything else. It is not.
As to birds, I do not think that scavengers are ever consumed usually. The birds that are consumed are chicken, pigeons, and other whose name I do not remember in English, but it is not particularly stated each species in the Qur'an, because nobody raises those for consumption, but pigs are had that way, raising them.
Salaam
