What the Bible Says About Diet

Have you ever wondered if God had anything to say about what we should eat? I asked this question and others to a small group of homeschooled children (mine!) and got into a lively discussion. Does God care about our health? Has He set out guidelines in the Bible? Do the Old Testament guidelines still apply today? e got our Bibles out and did some digging. This is what we found out:

Back in the Garden of Eden, in the very beginning, God made man (Adam) and woman (Eve), told them their purposes on this Earth, and then told them what they were supposed to eat. In the first chapter of the first book in the Bible, God tells the couple they are to eat fruit and herbs (King James English for vegetables and grasses) bearing seed. They were to pick it and eat it fresh, raw, and organic (see Genesis 1:29). The original perfect diet intended for mankind was a raw fruit and vegetable diet with a few grains, seeds, and nuts (if you consider them fruit) thrown in.

Then came the Great Flood (many histories include stories of a great flood or deluge- it really did occur). Noah (actually mentioned by name in other histories) and his family were the only people to survive the flood. God commanded Noah on what his family could eat. The Post-Flood Diet, mentioned in Genesis 9:3-4 says that every animal is "meat" (food) for you, as well as the above mentioned fruits and vegetables. God cautions Noah not to eat meat with blood in it. The meat must be cooked thoroughly.

Moses specified which animals were "clean" and "unclean" to the Hebrew nation in the Book of Leviticus. To this day, practicing Jews follow the levitical diet found in Leviticus 17:12-16. Meat is to come from grass-eating, cud chewing animals with split hooves. Beef, mutton/lamb, and venison would be acceptable, but camels, rabbits, guinea pigs, pigs (pork), and animals with paws are considered an abomination. Fish with fins and scales are acceptable, but shellfish and scavengers such as catfish are not. Fowls listed are only those one should not eat: eagles, ostriches, osprey, vultures, kites, ravens, owls, hawks, cucoos, cormorants, swans, pelicans, storks, herons, lapwings, and bats (though not birds, the Bible warns against eating them).

The only insects allowed on this diet are grasshoppers, locusts, and any other insect that "leaps." Other abominations include mice, weasels, tortoises, ferrets, reptiles, snails, and moles.

An interesting culinary caution is that it is an abomination to cook meat in milk, or even to serve a dairy item with a meat item. Modern day Jews still order cheese or vegetarian pizzas. They will not order a meat with cheese pizza. They also will not eat a sandwich or hamburger with meat and cheese on the same sandwich. They will not put cheese in with a meat casserole, and they will not put cream gravy on a chicken fried steak.

Again, in Leviticus, is the warning not to eat blood. The blood has to be cooked out of the meat before the meat can be eaten.

Does the Levitical Diet apply to evangelical Christians? Some argue that Christ was the fulfillment of the Law, and we are under grace, so we do not have to obey the Old Testament laws anymore. We can eat anything we want. Others use Peter's dream, where the Apostle Peter saw all manner of unclean animals descend from heaven in a table cloth, as their argument for eating anything we want (actually, the interpretation for this dream was that Peter was supposed to accept non-Jews into the Christian faith). Still others use the Apostle Paul's statement to eat meat or not depending on who you are with as a reason to eat anything.

On the other hand, some Christians argue that as we have gotten further in time away from knowing God personally, our diet has degenerated. They argue that we should go "back to the Garden" and eat a raw vegan diet as God originally intended.

The group of young homeschoolers I queried came up with this conclusion: God told the Hebrews that if they intended to eat meat, it should be from a specific menu outlined in Leviticus. As there is scientific evidence that the unclean meat mentioned in Leviticus is really deliterious for our health, if we choose to eat meat, it should be from the same list and cooked in the same way (of course there were groans about the pizza LOL). The class also concluded that since God originally intended for man to eat raw fruits and vegetables, they should eat a whole lot of these foods themselves.

I hope you enjoyed this little essay.

Many blessings,
-Donna