WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY… ABOUT OUR DIET AND CLEAN AND UNCLEAN MEAT?
THE DIET AT CREATION
The Bible tells us that humans were formed out of the earth and given a garden to tend. The diet given to humans was fruits, grains, nuts and vegetables. This was a system that was was sustained without the death of another animal. Nothing had to die. This was true of both humans and the beasts such as lions and bears. Nothing suffered. All was good.
Genesis 1:29-31 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which [is] upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which [is] the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein [there is] life, [I have given] every green herb for meat: and it was so. And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, [it was] very good…
After sin entered the world, Adam and Eve, no longer were able to live in the garden home. The earth no longer produced food easily.
Man was told in Genesis 3:19 Thorns also and thistles shall it {the earth} bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou [art], and unto dust shalt thou return.
Bread became the staple food, allowing for grain storage to take them through times of food production shortage.
CLEAN AND UNCLEAN
When the earth was nearing 2000 years old an interesting distinction was introduced, that of clean and unclean animals. The LORD instructed a man named Noah to build a large boat as an escape for his family and many animals. In Genesis 7:2-3 it says: Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that [are] not clean by two, the male and his female. Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.
When the flood was over, there was no food growing on the earth. The earth already had less ability to bear food than when God created it and now it had been completely flooded. Genesis 8:18 tells us that Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him. What were they to eat until food could again be grown? Therefore, God gave them a new dietary provision, coupled with a warning recorded in Genesis 9:3-5 "Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things. But flesh with the life thereof, [which is] the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it…"
God’s statement that every moving thing will be food for you was already in the context that clean and unclean animals had already been defined. If the unclean animals were eaten, then the unclean animals would have gone extinct. The clean animals would have been the ones eaten because there was more of them. God added meat to the diet, to help humankind through a time of horticultural famine, with the clear warning that blood was not to be eaten and that every beast that was eaten would require our lives. Just as God declared, after the flood, the ages of the Patriarchs took a steep decline.
A little later in the Bible, in Leviticus 11:1-31, we have further clarification of what animals are clean and unclean.
Clean animals have a divided hoof and chew the cud. Examples of this would be a cow, ox, deer, elk, sheep, goat, or moose. Unclean animals are those that have either a non-divided hoof and/or do not chew the cud. A camel chews the cud but doesn’t have a split hoof therefore it is unclean. A pig has a split hoof but it doesn’t chew its cud so it is unclean. A horse, donkey or mule has a non-divided hoof and does not chew the cud so they are unclean on both counts. This also excludes things like a rabbits or other rodents such as rats, mice, squirrels and marmots.
When it comes to fish, they must have both fins and scales to be clean.
A list of unclean birds are given and we are told not to eat them or the birds after their kind: the eagle, ossifrage, osprey, vulture and the kite, the owl, night hawk, raven and cuckoo. Other birds that can not be eaten are the swan, pelican, tier eagle, stork, heron and lapwing. Because the swan and pelican are unclean we can derive that the duck would be unclean. The kind of bird that is not mentioned as unclean would be the chicken and turkey. So they are assumed to be clean.
We are told to not eat the bat and any thing that flies that creeps around on all fours. That means the flying squirrel is unclean. Which we already knew because of the rodent restriction noted above but it is good to have overlap to better define our parameters. This means that we don’t eat moths and butterflies. The Bible then tells us we can eat locust, bald locust, the beetle and the grasshopper, each after their kind.
We are not to eat anything that has paws, like a dog or a cat, a weasel or a mouse. Even the tortoise and those after its kind, is unclean. We are to not eat the chameleon, the lizard, the snail or the mole. So a gopher would be off limits as well.
A distinction also is made that we are not to touch any unclean dead animal. If we do, we are unclean until that evening.
It is important to remember that the eating of animals is only a temporary provision for necessity until the diet instituted at creation can be eaten again or the earth is restored to the original condition and system. This is prophesied in Isaiah 11:6-9, "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea."
So the time will again come when we will not kill to eat. Why not start now? Come to Klondike Mountain Health Retreat and take the ten day Daniel Diet Program- a plant based program that is delicious, fun and an investment in your health!
Click here to see some patient reports of people who did the 10 day Daniel Diet (with the names removed of course:) We give God the glory for the improvements these people made in just 10 days, with only 9 days between the pre and post program blood draw.