Some of those non-Muslim pig-avoiders (make sure you parse that correctly...) are called "Jews."
Though "filthy" isn't really the justification for Jews.
I did a bit of research on the Jewish dietary laws (at least the basic ones shared by Christians, not the extended, nit-picky ones); and all of them have good, solid reasons for existing; particularly in a semi-nomadic agrarian culture.
The slaughtering method ensures that your only eating healthy animals, and not getting a big dose of adrenaline and such in the meat.
Most of the proscribed animals are prone to transmissible parasites of various sorts, have a bad body fat balance (rabbit, for example, needs to be supplemented by other fat sources because it's too lean to supply adequate HDLs), contain toxins or other undesireable substances, and so on.
As to the issue of vegetarianism and health, I think when people think of "healthy vegetarian," they mean "not overweight vegetarian," since if you eliminate meats, you right away knock out a major source of saturated fats. The other sources of the good stuff meat provides (protein, iron, etc) are very low fat- things like spinach and beans. So just a simple replacement means that you're going to be a lot healthier.
However, there is nothing unveggie about frying stuff. An Awesome Blossom is much more along the lines of bioautoterrorism than a lean piece of chicken. It's quite possible for a given vegetarian to be less healthy than a given meat eater.
I know at least a couple seriouslu overweight vegetarians; and at least one vegan. It doesn't make much sense to complain about all the bad stuff in meat when you're busy stuffing yourself with hydrogenated tropical oils (coconut, palm, palm kernel, etc.) which are higher in LDLs than any animal alive.
I'm a vegetarian, though not vegan, for pretty much one reason: I have a mild allergy and cannot digest the stuff as well as I should be able to. My reaction ranges from barely-noticible discomfort, to violent illness and migraines that leave me bedridden for days. And I'm not talking about junk food, either; but clean, healthy, even organically-raised, beef, pork, chicken, etc. Any kind of animal, really.
I can eat fish on occasion, but not often. I haven't tried any reptile, but I'm willing to bet I'd have problems with those as well. I do much better with eggs and dairy products (mmm, cheese) as long as I don't binge on them. Because of my allergy, I don't really care for the taste of meat, and haven't missed it since I quit eating it. The taste can actually make me naseous if i accidentally get any.
After I quit eating meat, I noticed after a very short time that I had more energy overall, and didn't get sick nearly as often. Been vegetarian for over 14 years now.
I have a friend who is just the opposite. Because of some medical condition (i don't recall what), his doctor told him that he needs a diet heavily based in meat, specifically red meat; and he can get very weak and sick if he doesn't eat quite a bit of the stuff.
