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If you eat only fruits and vegetables (and you do not don leather or fur), you are likely enjoying a vegan lifestyle. If in addition to these foods you eat an egg occasionally, and drink some animal milk, you may be more closely identified as following a vegetarian diet. To my surprise, reading about the early days of mankind, I now understand our first parents to be one of these (I’m not 100% sure which one). Even more surprising was learning that this was by God’s design!

Consider this passage from Genesis 1:29 “Then God said, ‘I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.’” This pronouncement, coupled with the fact there was (initially anyway) no death in the Garden of Eden means they had to eat only that which came from the good earth. Want another surprise? Even the animals in the garden did not eat one another! Genesis 1:30 reads “And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” Green plant for food, not one another for food! So, is it true Adam and Eve were vegetarians?

Conclusion; True! Again, not being a veg-only eater myself, I see living in a world with no death as severely limiting one’s menu choices compared to today’s variety. This “greens only” state-of-the-food remained until Genesis 3:21 where we read of the first sacrifice used to literally cover the freshly performed sins of man, “The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.” Skins came from something alive and something had to be done with the meat, right? Perhaps it was not eaten but made a burnt offering to God.

Now, before you modern day veg-only eaters frown on me and my Whopper, consider that I might be eating an “impossible” burger, made with pea, soy, or wheat protein. OK, it’s not. But I will point you to just a few pages later when God rejected Cain’s offering of “fruit of the ground”, preferring his brother Abel’s “firstborn of his flock along with their fat portions”. Could God’s preference for Abel’s offering be demonstrating his preference for meat over veggies? (Nah, probably not.)

And oh! Here’s another reference showing the time for eating anything is now. Initially in Genesis 9:3 Noah is given the go ahead to eat anything, and again in Acts 10:11, Peter has a vision where “He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles and birds. Then a voice told him, ‘Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.’” Christian scholars take this to literally mean all foods are OK to eat, but orthodox Jewish teachers explain this is merely a metaphor meaning Gentiles are to be welcomed into the newly forming Christian church.

Confused? Just in case that sheet dream was not clear enough proof, Jesus Himself is recorded in Matthew 15:17 saying food does not defile you “Anything you eat passes through the stomach and then goes into the sewer. But the words you speak come from the heart—that’s what defiles you.”

Paul reaches back to the Old Testament and has the last word on meat quoting David’s Psalm 24:1 “Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, for, ‘The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.’” And finally, stating in his letter to the people of Corinth “If I can thank God for the food and enjoy it, why should I be condemned for eating it?” So be careful you don’t defile yourself or condemn me for eating my Whopper.

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Writers Block