Thanks gness - that would supply some much needed explanation for what is going on here.
I always remember my dad, who served with the RAF in North Africa, telling me how Muslims from near the camp who were starving, would come to eat out of the pig bins - food waste from the camp canteens. Before scooping out handfuls of waste food, vegetable peelings, offal, anything, and devouring it ravenously, they would always say "Pig ...no ...?"
Such was the importance of their religion, they would literally starve rather than eat forbidden pork - another example of how their faith is woven into their daily lives.