The Revision of the Original Diet
The Fall of Man
After God created all things, He planted a separate and special garden called Eden. Eden was a perfect paradise, designed and prepared for the first humans. In Eden, He planted beautiful trees that were “pleasant to the sight” and also “good for food”. In the midst of the garden, He also planted “The Tree of Life” and “The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil”.
“And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the Tree of Life also in the midst of the garden, and The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Genesis 2:8-9 KJV
God placed Adam in the garden of Eden and gave him the freedom to eat of every tree, with the exception of The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
“And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Genesis 2:15-17 KJV
Sometime after, God decided that Adam should not be alone in the garden so He created a help mate for him. "And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him." Genesis 2:18 KJV
“And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” Genesis 2:21-24 KJV
Some time after, the serpent {a representation of Satan}, approached the woman and began to deceptively question her about God’s command to not eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
“Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” Genesis 3:1 KJV
“And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” Genesis 3:4-5 KJV
Ultimately, Adam and Eve would disobey God and eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
“And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.” Genesis 3:6-7 KJV
Adam and Eve’s disobedience against God, brought on life changing consequences for them and for us:
So the Lord God said to the serpent,
“Because you have done this,
You are cursed more than all cattle,
And more than every beast of the field;
On your belly you shall go,
And you shall eat dust
All the days of your life.
And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head,
And you shall bruise His heel.”
To the woman He said:
“I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception;
In pain you shall bring forth children;
Your desire shall be for your husband,
And he shall rule over you.”
Then to Adam He said,
“Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’:
“Cursed is the ground for your sake;
In toil you shall eat of it
All the days of your life.
Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you,
And you shall eat the herb of the field.
In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread
Till you return to the ground,
For out of it you were taken;
For dust you are,
And to dust you shall return.”
As a result of Adam and Eve’s rebellion, humanity became separated from God. Sin and death entered the world, and the earth became cursed. Thankfully, our loving Father in Heaven had a plan for restoration. He would eventually send His only son Jesus to earth for the remission of the sins of humanity.
The Temptation of Jesus
Just as Adam and Eve were tempted to eat the forbidden fruit, Jesus was tempted by Satan to turn stones into bread when he hungered after fasting for forty days and nights in the wilderness. Although He was weak and vulnerable, Jesus overcame Satan and won the victory over temptation.
“Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred. And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Matthew 4:1-4 KJV
Where Adam and Eve lost the battle with appetite, Jesus conquered his appetite through prayer, fasting, and self-control. If Jesus had obeyed the voice of the devil, he would not have fulfilled his mission and purpose of reconciling humanity back to God. Adam brought death to humanity but Jesus brought us life.
“For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.” 1 Corinthians 15:21-22 NKJV
Adam and Eve were greatly deceived and tempted through appetite. Humanity today is also greatly deceived in the same way. Thankfully, through faith in Jesus, we can overcome appetite by emulating His model of fasting, prayer and self-control. I elaborate further on this in Our Creator’s Healthcare Plan.
After the fall of man, the world became so corrupted that God sent a worldwide flood destroying all life off the face of the earth, with the exception of 8 souls, Noah and his family. I elaborate more on this in Parts One & Three.
After the flood waters receded in Genesis 9:1-4, God revised the Original Diet. In addition to Seed Bearing Herbs & Trees, He then allowed humans to eat the flesh of land and sea animals. At this point, the only dietary restriction given was the forbiddance of eating any flesh with “it’s life, or it’s blood.”
Notice that the original command given by God against eating an animals blood came well before the Food Laws were established by Moses further on in Deuteronomy and Leviticus. The dietary restriction against eating blood was instituted in the beginning of time and continues on into the New Testament.
“And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered. 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.” Genesis 9:2-4 KJV
When we fast forward to the book of Leviticus, we see in Chapter 3, God reiterates the dietary restriction against eating the blood of an animal, and then adds the restriction of eating the fat of an animal.
“This shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all your dwellings: you shall eat neither fat nor blood.” Leviticus 3:17 KJV
We also see the command against eating blood repeated in other scriptures such as Leviticus Chapter 17.
“For it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof: therefore I said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh: for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof: whosoever eateth it shall be cut off.” Leviticus 17:14 KJV
The LORD establishes in Deuteronomy Chapter 14 that it is also forbidden to eat an animal carcass that has died naturally or was killed by another animal.
You are not to eat any carcass; you may give it to the foreigner residing within your gates, and he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner. For you are a holy people belonging to the LORD your God. You must not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.” Deuteronomy 14:21.
The Encyclopedia of the Bible offers several reasons why God may have chosen to create these dietary restrictions:
“The reason for the strict laws on diet was never explained. They may have been God’s way of protecting the health of the people. They may have been intended to avoid cruelty to animals: for example, the law that forbade the boiling of a kid in its mother’s milk; and the draining of the blood, which prevented the practice of cutting a limb off a live animal for meat. Or they may have been given for more strictly ‘religious’ reasons. This was certainly the reason for forbidding meat which had been offered to an idol. And boiling a kid in its mother’s milk may have been a Canaanite religious practice which the Israelites were to avoid. We cannot always be sure in any particular case whether one or all of these reasons holds good.”
In Leviticus Chapter 17, we see our Creator’s standards for killing an animal look vastly different from the slaughtering practices of Man’s Food & Drug System.
“For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement, by reason of the life [which it represents].’ Therefore I have said to the sons of Israel, ‘No person among you may eat blood, nor may any stranger living temporarily among you eat blood.’ So when any Israelite or any stranger living temporarily among them, catches any ceremonially clean animal or bird when hunting, he shall pour out its blood and cover it with earth.” Leviticus 17:11-13 AMP
Mostly all animals in Man’s Food & Drug System today are not slaughtered according to the instructions from our Creator to drain the blood and bury it back into the earth. God taught His people that killing a land animal was a sacrificial act that was to be committed with worship and intention. It was never meant to be what it has become. The blood is the life of the animal and that life belongs to God.
Tip: Bathing animal flesh in real, unrefined mineral salt is a good way to absorb and remove any excess blood or impurities. Mineral salt is also beneficial to the body and provides a number of other important natural resources such as; seasoning food, seasoning cast iron cookware, wound and oral care, food preservation and hydrotherapy.
Clean & Unclean
In Leviticus, Chapter 11, God adds more dietary restrictions. In this Chapter, He makes a distinction between which land and sea creatures are clean to eat, and those that are not. Here is a brief summary of Leviticus Chapter 11:
The Animals of the Earth
“Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying to them, “Speak to the children of Israel, saying, ‘These are the animals which you may eat among all the animals that are on the earth: Among the animals, whatever divides the hoof, having cloven hooves and chewing the cud—that you may eat.” Leviticus 11:1-3 NKJV
Sea Creatures
“These you may eat of all that are in the water: whatever in the water has fins and scales, whether in the seas or in the rivers—that you may eat. And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you: They shall be even an abomination unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcases in abomination. Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you. Leviticus 11:12 KJV
Birds
“And these you shall regard as an abomination among the birds; they shall not be eaten, they are an abomination: the eagle, the vulture, the buzzard, the kite, and the falcon after its kind; every raven after its kind, the ostrich, the short-eared owl, the sea gull, and the hawk after its kind; the little owl, the fisher owl, and the screech owl; the white owl, the jackdaw, and the carrion vulture; the stork, the heron after its kind, the hoopoe, and the bat.” Leviticus 11:13-19 NKJV
Insects
“All flying insects that creep on all fours shall be an abomination to you.Yet these you may eat of every flying insect that creeps on all fours: those which have jointed legs above their feet with which to leap on the earth.These you may eat: the locust after its kind, the destroying locust after its kind, the cricket after its kind, and the grasshopper after its kind. But all other flying insects which have four feet shall be an abomination to you.” Leviticus 11:20-23 NKJV