Are these applicable today? In what form? Are they merely "ceremonial" and not moral? Personally, I've never been 100% satisfied with the ceremonial v. moral line drawing of the Mosaic code that some modern Christian commentators do. It has an attractive simplicity to it, but in my view, it oversimplifies the Mosaic code because the Mosaic code itself blurs it all without such a distinction.
Let's start with Leviticus 11. Without editorializing, here are the meat rules:
Land animals fit for consumption must have: (1) cloven-hoof and (2) ruminate.
Water animals fit for consumption must have: (1) fins and (2) scales
For birds, we do not get a guiding principle, but rather a long list of things unfit for human consumption. However, a simple reading of the list emerges the pattern, the birds unfit include birds of prey and scavengers.
We get a list of other common animals that are unclean - weasel, mouse, tortoise, ferret, chameleon, lizard, snail, and mole.
If the rationale for these rules are hygiene and disease control, then the precise combinations for land and water animals seem arbitrary. Rumination would definitely affect an animal's disease, for after all, if it ruminates, then it must be a vegetarian. If we contrast this with the rules for bird meat, this would be consistent and we can discern a pattern - do not eat animals that scavenge or are predators.
However, the cloven-hoof or lack thereof seems to not have anything to do with what goes into the animal's body. No, it doesn't. However, I'm guessing at this as I don't know this for a fact, but the ruminating animals with cloven hoofs (i.e., cow) are foregut fermenters while those with a unified hoof are hind-gut fermenters (i.e., horses).
A bit of comparative anatomy, rumination is the process whereby the animal's GI track breaks down the cell walls of plants. This could occur in the 4-chamber stomach, such as in a cow (fore-gut fermentation), or in the large intestine of a horse (hind-cut fermentation).
Does this ultimately matter? I have no idea. I'm trying to figure why the cover-hoof matters other for the fact that it just so happens to fit the pattern of fore-gut rumination.
As for water animals, the scavenger/predator demarcation falls apart. One great example is tuna. Tuna are vicious predatory fish, but they have fins and scales. Likewise, vegetarian sea creatures don't always have fins. An example would be marine iguanas, although this would be included under lizards.
So, what's the pattern? What is this about? There is a general pattern of avoiding predators and scavengers, but it is not completely consistent. There are herbivores that would be excluded as unclean while some predators would be considered clean.
A great indication of the rationale for this might come from the consequence of touching their dead bodies, which is outlined in Lev. 11:31 - unclean until evening. This would indicate that it is about disease control and/ or physical cleanliness. It also fits into the pattern that emerges for purity of childbirth and leprosy.
On a side note, although the Israelites probably did not think like this (maybe they did), there is no consequence of eating unclean animals listed other than touching their bodies. Touching their bodies is a part of eating them. So, I suppose if you were an ancient Israelite and you really wanted to eat a pig, you could do it, but you would unclean until the evening.
If touching their dead bodies made you unclean, then the Israelites could not use these animals generally for hides and leather.
After all the discussion about disease control, we get an indication at the end of Leviticus 11 that is far more than about hygiene:
44For I am the LORD your God. Ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy, for I am holy; neither shall ye defile yourselves with any manner of creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
This would indicate that God views these rules as part of the general requirements for holiness. This would suggest there is a moral component to these rules.
So, let's ask - should these be applicable today?
On one hand, if these are about disease control, plus in the New Testament Peter sees the animals on the sheet and is instructed to "kill and eat". Well, despite Peter's vision, if we really care about being healthy and these rules are given by God, then maybe we should follow them.
On the other hand, I know people who still keep these rules. However, to my knowledge, they do not follow the corollary rules on clean and unclean meats, such as not using the hides of unclean meats (i.e, crocodile purses, eel-skin wallets etc...).
In Leviticus 11, we do not get corollary rules on clean and unclean plants. There are no specific prohibitions against plant or plant products that we might consider "unclean" today - marijuana, coca, tobacco, or poppy. Tobacco and coca are New World plants, so the Israelites would not have had an opportunity to use them.
However, marijuana (hashish) and poppy have a long history of use in the Middle East. The closest thing we find in Leviticus 11 about potentially defiling plants is verse 44's prohibition about defiling oneself, although it uses unclean meats as the example.
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