Old Testament Diet - Was God being a Bully?

[rockytopva]

I try to keep my diet as biblical as I can...

1. No pork
2. I deem beef and buffalo as biblical. I love making dishes with buffalo such as spaghetti
3. Fresh fruit and vegetables are good!

I do not think that God was being a bully when he wrote the dietary standards of the Old Testament. Bacon is high is saturated fat and cannot be good for the arteries. We have a local pizzeria that serves beef pepperoni on their pizzas, which I think as a good idea. God did not command us also to put all those chemicals in foods, which I also believe work against our physical system. The principle use of the chemical azodicarbonamide is in the manufacture of plastics, specifically as a blowing agent. The US uses it as a dough conditioner and a bleaching agent in its breads. As a food additive azodicarbonamide is not authorized in Australia and the EU. Subway removed this chemical from their bread last year...

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/04/11/subway-yoga-mat-chemical-almost-out-of-bread/7587787/

My grandparents and I use to plant garden and there is nothing that tastes so good as food fresh out of the garden. Back in those August days we would eat well out of the garden and have Sunday meals with just garden vegetables.Fresh red potatoes so tender that you can peel them with your hand, tomatoes, corn on the cob, cucumbers in apple cider vinegar, fresh homemade bread, green beans with just a hint of sugar, along with fresh home made tea... Mmmm! Mmmm!

 

[heretoeternity]

Oh wow those fresh veggies...making me drool...yes you cannot beat those garden grown, natural, fresh veggies...new potatoes, and carrots with real homemade butter...now I really getting hungry..together with real big juicy red tomatoes....and use these tomatoes to make homemade tomato soup....ooooh I got to go and eat something now for sure....

 

[heretoeternity]

This all raises an interesting question....in the early Bible, people lived 900 years or so...then the flood, and Noah's ark...at that stage there was still no animosity between animals and man did not appear to eat meat...when the animals went to the ark the lions did not eat the sheep etc...it was not until after the flood that there was animosity between the animals and man started eating meat...the longevity dropped to 140 years or thereabouts...hmmmm....could it be the eating of meat was the determining factor?

 

[Josho]

We would probably all be pretty healthy if we go on the biblical diet, i haven't tried locusts yet though, sounds like a tasty snack though.

 

[liafailrock]

I try to keep my diet as biblical as I can...

1. No pork
2. I deem beef and buffalo as biblical. I love making dishes with buffalo such as spaghetti
3. Fresh fruit and vegetables are good!

I do not think that God was being a bully when he wrote the dietary standards of the Old Testament. Bacon is high is saturated fat and cannot be good for the arteries. We have a local pizzeria that serves beef pepperoni on their pizzas, which I think as a good idea. God did not command us also to put all those chemicals in foods, which I also believe work against our physical system. The principle use of the chemical azodicarbonamide is in the manufacture of plastics, specifically as a blowing agent. The US uses it as a dough conditioner and a bleaching agent in its breads. As a food additive azodicarbonamide is not authorized in Australia and the EU. Subway removed this chemical from their bread last year...

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/04/11/subway-yoga-mat-chemical-almost-out-of-bread/7587787/

My grandparents and I use to plant garden and there is nothing that tastes so good as food fresh out of the garden. Back in those August days we would eat well out of the garden and have Sunday meals with just garden vegetables.Fresh red potatoes so tender that you can peel them with your hand, tomatoes, corn on the cob, cucumbers in apple cider vinegar, fresh homemade bread, green beans with just a hint of sugar, along with fresh home made tea... Mmmm! Mmmm!

I generally agree and eat this way, also. But it's not because of saturated fat or trichinosis that we are not allowed to eat pork. Saturated fat does not really clog the arteries and the "lipid hypothesis" has been pushed for decades despite evidence to the contrary. Thus, they been pushing useless BP meds, cholesterol meds, and other "numbers lowering drugs" for awhile. They only make the Pharmaseuticals $$$ and your wallet empty and as Jesus would say, does not add one cubit to your life. So instead of dying within 3 years from high cholesterol, one will still get a heart attack in 3 years with "normal" cholesterol. Saturated fat breaks down in the body to basically monounsaturated fats and a few harmless fatty acids if one has a normal liver. The culprits to watch for are polyunsaturated fats in excess (e.g.vegetable oils) and sugars are bad for the body. Butter (saturated fat) is far safer than man-made margarine (vegetable oil polyunstaurated fats).

I don't know why pork was forbidden, but Yahweh the creator (aka Jesus Christ), just said so. Thus, it's a matter of obedience. For me, it's not a big deal and this does not really test my faith at all as even as a kid I detested the smell of pork. Bacon is better tasting probably because of the salt. But salt is good for the body and adds a taste to the bacon so that "koshers" it a little , but still forbidden. One poster on another forum said that pork has a tendency to make one get arthritis. Being a Pa Dutchman myself, I know my relatives all eat pork and yes, most have arthritis. I don't, and I'm 56. My wife seems to have some (she eats pork) and she's 57. Also, for those out there, shell fish is off limits. While I don't have a known alergy to shell fish, my older brother does, so there's something about that I should avoid kosher or not. Thus, be careful of Krill oil supplements. Krill oil supplements are not Kosher. Besides fish oil supplements, get your omega 3's from lots of eggs, eating fish, or the like.

As for gardens, we live on divided farmland form my parents-in-law. They were farmers. So my wife has it in her to plant a garden, and I help where I can but I get poison easily (she doesn't) whereas I can take a lot of unprotected sunlight, (she can't) so we balance each other out so-to-speak. We grow tomatoes, lettuce, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, onions to name a few. Vegetables like that are good for you and taste so much better than in the store. The healthiest foods to eat IMO (and backed up with both evidence and experience) are proteins such as meat and some animal products (eggs, butter), vegetables and some fruits. This day and age, I'd avoid grains and vegetable oils and "milk" (notice the quotes) and anything processed.

 

[liafailrock]

This all raises an interesting question....in the early Bible, people lived 900 years or so...then the flood, and Noah's ark...at that stage there was still no animosity between animals and man did not appear to eat meat...when the animals went to the ark the lions did not eat the sheep etc...it was not until after the flood that there was animosity between the animals and man started eating meat...the longevity dropped to 140 years or thereabouts...hmmmm....could it be the eating of meat was the determining factor?

About "eating meat" decreasing longevity, I doubt that. That's a veggan thought. It's also unbiblical as some meats were considered kosher by God Himself. Jesus ate meats. If a person wants to eat veggan, that's their choice, but to extrapolate like that is not scientific nor biblical. There's no biblical character in the bible I'm aware of that was veggan by choice after the flood. If there was, point him or her out.

I'm not sure why people lived longer. One theory was an atmospheric canopy (before the flood) filtered out the sun's UV rays which are dangerous to us. But that's based on the erroneous medical dogma that the "sun causes cancer" myth. Skin cancer is not caused by the sun, but rather weakling people (probably lacking some nutients) who can't take the sun. Before you judge what I say, my wife had some basel cell carcenoma that the doctor blamed on the sun. She's not a weakling and her vitamin D levels are high. I say it's not the sun -- probably more menopause and, to be truthful, in the old days it would have been considered at worse a "sun blister". They have everything so high-tech that they now call everything "cancer" but in reality just cutting it off is the cure. We are not as "sick" as they tell us in order to sell treatments and give us more tests.

Probably the real reason we don't live as long is as each generation progressed, man moved further from his creator (who is Jesus Christ) and away from his source of life. We rebelled more and more. Maybe the sun contributes part of it, but at worse, maybe half the age. There's more to it.

 

[heretoeternity]

But why didn't the lions on the ark eat NOAH or his family,or the sheep etc....seems the meat eating started in the animal kingdom and man's meat eating started long before Jesus came to earth...God did say because man's thoughts and actions had become evil, He had to shorten the years...hmmm

 

[liafailrock]

But why didn't the lions on the ark eat NOAH or his family,or the sheep etc....seems the meat eating started in the animal kingdom and man's meat eating started long before Jesus came to earth...God did say because man's thoughts and actions had become evil, He had to shorten the years...hmmm

That's speculative why they did not eat other animals on the ark. Maybe because Noah had good control over them. My point is that it does not prove anything regarding eating meats one way or the other.

Then.... there's the issue of Kosher laws and also eating the Passover lamb, for example. Hard to obey God's command if one refrains from meat. There were proper meats and improper ones God pointed out in His Law thus allowing man to eat certain ones. As a matter of fact, the roasted lamb gave them strength to leave Egypt as there was not a feeble one in their midst. They were all healed. But on the other hand, as I told my family, I like lamb at "Easter" (really Unleavened Bread week) because Christ is the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. Not the ham of God that takes away the sin of the world.

Lastly, there's not enough evidence that veggans as a rule live longer (or healthier), because they are depriving themselves of some vital nutrients found in animal foods. That's another story that is a subject in and of itself. But the point is that if it was as simple as not eating meat, me thinks people would pick up on this and stop since most want to live longer. But it's simply not true. I realize the prevailing wisdom out there (especially from government) is aimed at "eating less red meat". That gets into conspiracy theory stuff why they want us all ill and feed us "whole grains" like cattle. But they, and the likes of Michelle Obama pushing fat free milk onto growing kids is simply wrong. The proof is that people have been getting low fat stuff, watching their cholesterol, less meats, staying out of the sun, slathering on the sunscreen and all the other lame-brained stuff just like they are told, and yet people are fatter and sicker than ever.

 

[rockytopva]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/11412905/Why-you-should-never-eat-a-bacon-sandwich-what-you-can-and-cant-eat.html

“Processed meats, including bacon, sausages, parma ham, ham and salami, have a very high salt content and the act of processing itself is associated with an increase of heart disease, bowel cancer and stroke,” says Dr Michael Mosley. “One esteemed scientist I know called Dr David Spiegelhalter told me that if you crunch the numbers, every bacon sandwich you eat knocks half an hour off your life.”

 

[Zenguin]

I'm writing this as I'm nomming some Skittles, so that should give you an idea of my diet.

The biblical diet, as I understand, was designed to prevent illnesses and excess. The Hebrews were largely a farming and ranching community, nomadic in their nature. There were limited ways of preserving meats, but they could also spoil easily. Who knows what ailments lurked in swine meat thousands of years ago? Bacon is delicious, but not if it's going to kill me by way of botulism or some such. I believe there was also an element of separation between the pagan cultures and the Hebrews. By refusing certain foods, the Hebrews were distinguished from idolatrous cultures they encountered.

A biblical diet isn't a bad idea, to be certain, though I personally don't feel convicted to eat kosher or halal foods. I'm very much a "meat and potatoes" kind of guy.

As Always,

Waddle On

 

[Raeneske]

I try to keep my diet as biblical as I can...

1. No pork
2. I deem beef and buffalo as biblical. I love making dishes with buffalo such as spaghetti
3. Fresh fruit and vegetables are good!

I do not think that God was being a bully when he wrote the dietary standards of the Old Testament. Bacon is high is saturated fat and cannot be good for the arteries. We have a local pizzeria that serves beef pepperoni on their pizzas, which I think as a good idea. God did not command us also to put all those chemicals in foods, which I also believe work against our physical system. The principle use of the chemical azodicarbonamide is in the manufacture of plastics, specifically as a blowing agent. The US uses it as a dough conditioner and a bleaching agent in its breads. As a food additive azodicarbonamide is not authorized in Australia and the EU. Subway removed this chemical from their bread last year...

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/04/11/subway-yoga-mat-chemical-almost-out-of-bread/7587787/

My grandparents and I use to plant garden and there is nothing that tastes so good as food fresh out of the garden. Back in those August days we would eat well out of the garden and have Sunday meals with just garden vegetables.Fresh red potatoes so tender that you can peel them with your hand, tomatoes, corn on the cob, cucumbers in apple cider vinegar, fresh homemade bread, green beans with just a hint of sugar, along with fresh home made tea... Mmmm! Mmmm!

You will notice, that the closer one eats to the Edenic diet, the greater health people tend to have. If we start with the basics:

Genesis 1:29 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.

God gave to man fruits, and all sorts of seeds in the beginning as part of their original diet. So, Fruits, Grains, Nuts, Seeds, Legumes... all these were part of man's original diet. Directly after sin, another thing was added to man's diet.

Genesis 3:18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;

The "herb of the field" or the plants of the field were added to man's diet. So, greens, root vegetables, etc. were added to man's diet after the fall, no doubt because of the emergency met of the fact that man was now dying, and the future emergencies to be met.

Genesis 9:2-3 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. 3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.

Meat was not given to be eaten until after the flood of Noah. So here we see successive steps of more and more being allowed into man's diet. But those with the greatest health, and mental focus and attitude are those who get closer and closer to the Edenic diet. It's impossible for this statement not to be true. The brain is an organ. Everything that you put into your body affects your body. The brain is not all of a sudden immune to the effects of harmful things placed into the diet.

For example, if one eats meat constantly, at every meal, and the majority of the meal in calories, they will be clearly experiencing some mental fog. Problem is, if that mental fog is normal, they won't notice until they step into a clearer state. It's like becoming a Christian. Constantly we think sin is normal, until we meet Christ, then realize it is an unnatural thing (in the Universe, as a whole) for one to commit sin. Only the fallen angels, and humankind have sinned. The rest of God's universe is perfect.

There are ridiculous arguments like "you need meat" to live. Are we sure about this? How did people before the flood of Noah live without meat? And the only reason man was permitted to eat meat at that point was because a flood just wiped out vegetation on planet earth. God did not even want Israel to have meat at first, but because of their lustful desire for meat, He gave it to them. And they were slain for lusting after it too.

Meat was meant to serve an emergency. And so in the case of an emergency today, meat can serve an emergency. But should it make up the majority of the human diet? No, it should not.

In the eating of meat, I recommend none, but if eaten, then clean meats over unclean meats. What one may notice is that God forbade scavengers to be eaten. You are what you eat. The pig, for example, is a scavenger and eats filth. How can you get anything out of filth but filth? The flesh of pigs is rampant with disease and parasites, yet people will continue to eat this filth. It's no wonder in America people are so sick today. Bacon just seems so irresistible, and "you need your meat for protein."

When we as Christians turn to God to make all our decisions for us, we will begin to experience unbelievable blessings. Yes, turn to God for your job, for your friends, for your diet, for your leisure time, etc. Turn to God. And experience the blessings, even of health, He is just waiting to bestow upon you.

 

[r4hnsn]

The customs given to Israel were to seperate them from other nations and therefore make plain that the God they served was distinct from all the so called gods. God used this to make them a light to other nations and point them to Himself, but the Jews became a shameful example and disgraced Gods Name.
When the gospel went out to the nations, God now chose to make individual christians distinct from others and a city on a hill. Time zones and vast distances no longer made it expedient to use a cumbersome entire nation.

The sabbaths and other customs no longer fit Gods purposes and are succeeded by gospel methods and the indwelling Holy Spirit.

 

[Angelina]

I try to keep my diet as biblical as I can...
1. No pork
2. I deem beef and buffalo as biblical. I love making dishes with buffalo such as spaghetti
3. Fresh fruit and vegetables are good!

I think that there was a reason why God considered animals that split the hoof, unclean like pork. I was reading an article about pork recently and it's kinda put me off a bit.

 

[StanJ]

Many probably have missed Gen 1:29 (NIV)

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.

 

[Beloved212]

Love fresh veggies in a salad or on the side of some fish, chicken or beef. YUMMY!

 

[GodsBeloved11]

I generally agree and eat this way, also. But it's not because of saturated fat or trichinosis that we are not allowed to eat pork. Saturated fat does not really clog the arteries and the "lipid hypothesis" has been pushed for decades despite evidence to the contrary. Thus, they been pushing useless BP meds, cholesterol meds, and other "numbers lowering drugs" for awhile. They only make the Pharmaseuticals $$$ and your wallet empty and as Jesus would say, does not add one cubit to your life. So instead of dying within 3 years from high cholesterol, one will still get a heart attack in 3 years with "normal" cholesterol. Saturated fat breaks down in the body to basically monounsaturated fats and a few harmless fatty acids if one has a normal liver. The culprits to watch for are polyunsaturated fats in excess (e.g.vegetable oils) and sugars are bad for the body. Butter (saturated fat) is far safer than man-made margarine (vegetable oil polyunstaurated fats).

I don't know why pork was forbidden, but Yahweh the creator (aka Jesus Christ), just said so. Thus, it's a matter of obedience. For me, it's not a big deal and this does not really test my faith at all as even as a kid I detested the smell of pork. Bacon is better tasting probably because of the salt. But salt is good for the body and adds a taste to the bacon so that "koshers" it a little , but still forbidden. One poster on another forum said that pork has a tendency to make one get arthritis. Being a Pa Dutchman myself, I know my relatives all eat pork and yes, most have arthritis. I don't, and I'm 56. My wife seems to have some (she eats pork) and she's 57. Also, for those out there, shell fish is off limits. While I don't have a known alergy to shell fish, my older brother does, so there's something about that I should avoid kosher or not. Thus, be careful of Krill oil supplements. Krill oil supplements are not Kosher. Besides fish oil supplements, get your omega 3's from lots of eggs, eating fish, or the like.

As for gardens, we live on divided farmland form my parents-in-law. They were farmers. So my wife has it in her to plant a garden, and I help where I can but I get poison easily (she doesn't) whereas I can take a lot of unprotected sunlight, (she can't) so we balance each other out so-to-speak. We grow tomatoes, lettuce, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, onions to name a few. Vegetables like that are good for you and taste so much better than in the store. The healthiest foods to eat IMO (and backed up with both evidence and experience) are proteins such as meat and some animal products (eggs, butter), vegetables and some fruits. This day and age, I'd avoid grains and vegetable oils and "milk" (notice the quotes) and anything processed.

For the Israelites it may have been to distinguish them as a set apart people. Because pagan nations did eat "unclean" foods.

 

[GodsBeloved11]

Isaiah 66: 17 refers to those surrounding pagan nations who ate mice (probably desert rats , what we call gerbils) and swine flesh.

 

[Angelina]

I try to keep my diet as biblical as I can...

1. No pork
2. I deem beef and buffalo as biblical. I love making dishes with buffalo such as spaghetti
3. Fresh fruit and vegetables are good!

I do not think that God was being a bully when he wrote the dietary standards of the Old Testament. Bacon is high is saturated fat and cannot be good for the arteries. We have a local pizzeria that serves beef pepperoni on their pizzas, which I think as a good idea. God did not command us also to put all those chemicals in foods, which I also believe work against our physical system. The principle use of the chemical azodicarbonamide is in the manufacture of plastics, specifically as a blowing agent. The US uses it as a dough conditioner and a bleaching agent in its breads. As a food additive azodicarbonamide is not authorized in Australia and the EU. Subway removed this chemical from their bread last year...

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money...oga-mat-chemical-almost-out-of-bread/7587787/

My grandparents and I use to plant garden and there is nothing that tastes so good as food fresh out of the garden. Back in those August days we would eat well out of the garden and have Sunday meals with just garden vegetables.Fresh red potatoes so tender that you can peel them with your hand, tomatoes, corn on the cob, cucumbers in apple cider vinegar, fresh homemade bread, green beans with just a hint of sugar, along with fresh home made tea... Mmmm! Mmmm!

No, I don't think God was being a bully at all. If you haven't ever tasted some of these restricted foods, you would never feel that you are missing out. My Home Economic teacher use to say "You are what you eat" True dat! even true today...