Is the Torah/Bible advocating plant-based diet?

I started an older topic here about the facts we (might) know about animal based diet.

Today I was digging around and found the following quotes from the bible:

" In the beginning 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 everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. (Gen. 1:29-30)"

"And again, verily I say unto you, all wholesome herbs God hath ordained for the constitution, nature and use of man-Every herb in the season thereof, and every fruit in the season thereof; all these to be used with prudence and thanksgiving. (D&C 89:11)"

Source

"'...and whoso eats the flesh of slain beasts, eats of the body of death. For in his blood every drop of their blood turns to poison; in his breath their breath to stink; in his flesh their flesh to boils; in his bones their bones to chalk; in his bowels their bowels t o decay; in his eyes their eyes to scales; in his ears their ears to waxy issue. And their death will become his death."

"...For if you eat living food, the same will quicken you, but if you kill your food, the dead food will kill you also. For life comes only from life, and from death comes always death. For everything which kills your foods, kills your bodies also. And everything which kills your bodies kills your souls also. And your bodies become what your foods are, even as your spirits, likewise, become what your thoughts are.

...For burned, frozen and rotted foods will burn, freeze and rot your body also

...For I tell you truly, live only by the fire of life, and prepare not your foods with the fire of death, which kills your foods, your bodies and your souls also."

"...Eat nothing, therefore, which a stronger fire than the fire of life has killed...

"...So eat always from the table of God: the fruits of the trees, the grain and grasses of the field, the milk of beasts, and the honey of bees.

"...Eat, therefore, all your life at the table of our Earthly Mother, and you will never see want. And when you eat at her table, eat all things even as they are found on the table of the Earthly Mother. Cook not, neither mix all things one with another, lest your bowels become as steaming bogs. For I tell you truly, this is abominable in the eyes of the Lord."

Source

These "every herb bearing seeds, which is upon the face of all the earth" are the grasses. Only grasses are growing all over the earth in each elevation and climate....

From grass seeds mankind has developed all cereals by selecting and cultivating: spelt, emmer-wheat, wheat, rye, barley, oats, buckwheat, millet, sorghum, amaranth, rice, maize and other food crops and varieties.

"But what is happening really? The larger part of the world harvest of cereals is fed to about 15 billion "useful animals" to eat their meat. Each single person eating so called "mixed food" (vegetables and animal food products), is eating up the food base of a complete family in a "developing country". The punishment is coming later, with a delay in average of 20 years: The person falls ill with one of the protein-mast diseases (so called and proven by Prof. Dr. Lothar Wendt, who was living and teaching in Frankfurt): Cardiovascular diseases like hypertension, heart attack, stroke; overweight, diabetes II, gout, polyarthritis, rheumatism, allergies, dysfunction of the kidneys, and more. When already the parents were eating "mixed food", it doesn't anymore take again 20 years; already the children then suffer from degenerations and diseases during their childhood."

Source

One can make the observation that in all of the above quotes, the main point seems to be to eat the plants/herbs of the Earth, which can be fruits, grasses (grains), and try and not cook the food with fire/water/air.

It also mentions that the 'meat' for man comes from plant based diet.
I heard, growing up, that no bacteria can survive in honey. Milk, although is frowned upon in my older post, can be made from other sources instead of animals. What about Rice milk or Soy milk?

Just like facts about cholesterol, which clogs the arteries, only comes from animal foods. 50 years ago, it was bad. Now all of a sudden there's good and bad cholesterol. The point is that it will still clog the arteries, leading to cardiovascular diseases. Plant based foods have the opposite affect, which removes blockages from your arteries.

So, a couple of questions:

Why would they mention these facts, to eat only herbs/seeds, and not animals, in that time period? If they didn't have any technologies that can monitor human health and how food affects it, how did they know?

If every herb that is upon the Earth is for man to eat/use, why are some made illegal by that same man?

The fact that doctors who faced heart-disease and cancer cured themselves NOT with the 'recommended' treatment (chemotherapy), but simply by going to all plant-based diets? Did they read the bible or something?

thank you for reading.

Most of those quotes, while written in the manner one would expect to find in the Bible, aren't found in the Bible. This would be like me saying that the Bible teaches against watching TV and creating a quote like:

Behold, I sayeth unto thee. Watcheth not thine boob tube for it hath the spirit of lust, greed, sloth, and wrath upon it. Woe unto he who wasteth his time on thine couch for it is an affront in the eyes of the Lord, thine God.

with the direct intent of making those not quick enough to catch that it's a fabricated quote believe God really said it and, in turn, follow what I'm suggesting the do or do not do.

reply to post by quintar


Hi Quintar,

i touched upon this issue in a different thread, and I'm not astute enough to know how to link to that thread ("I believe I may have found the Tree of Knowledge"), so at the risk of being redundant I'll simply/paraphrase what I said there.

With regard to the question of the Torah view on vegetarianism, initially in Bereshis/Genesis mankind was completely vegetarian and this was the norm and standard up until the generation of Noah (after the "Great Flood"). Noach was given the commandment to eat meat, and some of the rabbinical scholars have posited that with the flood an actual physiological change in human DNA occurred (this is a matter of conjecture, but note-worthy while we are on the subject, they had more to say about this, but I don't want to get into some of the more eyebrow raising aspects of Torah). A lot of rabbis and scholars I have spoken to and read work from have blatantly stated that vegetarianism is not a lofty or glorious thing to be congratulated, and they go on to say that the last time the human race was completely vegetarian, mankind was so wicked they had to be wiped out in the Flood (to be fair it was not vegetarianism that made them evil, btw, and there is mention of the Nephilim eating the flesh of animals, which was unheard of at the tie according to the Biblical accounts). There are a few instances where certain holy figures in the Torah were vegetarian even after the time of Noach. I believe Daniel was a vegetarian, but this was more in keeping with his personal practice of eating modestly and not drinking wine. Now, what the Rabbis say is that man was given the commandment to eat meat, and in Kabbalistic terms, it is because we are to raise or elevate the sparks of divinity in the animals themselves, i.e. to elevate the souls of the animal. This occurs when the animal is slaughtered in a particular way which was supposed to limit the suffering of the animal, and the appropriate blessings had to be recited before and after each meal, etc. There is a specific prohibition in the Torah forbidding the eating or ingesting of the blood from any animal as well. To be fair, a lot of the rabbis have stated that meat is to be eaten sparingly, under specific strenuous guidelines, and preferably only on a Yom Tov (i.e. holy day) or on the Sabbath. The Talmud, I seem to remember, makes an allowance for someone who wishes not to eat meat, and I believe it says something to the effect of "One is to only eat meat if he has a particular desire to do so." I could look that passage up for you if you like, but it currently escapes me as to where it is written. So, on the one hand, yes the Torah does speak about the Adamic race (i.e. humans) originally being vegetarians, but apparently there is some rather large level of importance placed on the *proper* eating of meat, within it's prescribed guidelines (and one of those is that Meat and Dairy are not to be mixed, or even eaten within a certain time-period of each other). The gluttonous eating of meat is frowned upon outright. So, I hope that helps to clarify what you were looking for. If you need me to I can dig up the specific sources for you, but I think this should suffice.

Peace,
hexagram23