GOD'S FOOD LAWS IN TODAY'S WORLD
by Ted Walther (December 29, 2003)
All rights reversed. Distribute freely.
Edited to reflect Messianic
wording and to correct misspellings
INTRODUCTION
| GENERAL
PRINCIPLES | LAWFUL
HERBS | FORBIDDEN
HERBS | SEAWEED
| YEAST | LAWFUL FLESH | FORBIDDEN FLESH
| CANNIBALISM
| FLYING FOWL |
SEAFOOD | INSECTS | BLOOD | FAT | INTERNAL ORGANS
| DAIRY PRODUCTS AND
BABY FOOD | LAW
FOR FEEDING LIVESTOCK | LAWS FOR AGRICULTURE
| MERCY | CONCLUSION | REFERENCES
INTRODUCTION
It has been a long time since Moses recorded the laws, statutes, and
judgments at
There are many health benefits to following the food laws. Whether you are
religious or not, following the ancient diet is so simple, easy, and
unobtrusive that you need to ask yourself: "How can I justify not finding
out what this diet involves?"
Some people assume that the food laws of the Bible are more or less
identical to Jewish kosher and the Islamic halal restrictions. There are
actually some quite important differences, which I'll note as we go along.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES
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 food. Genesis 1:29
Every moving thing that liveth shall be food for you; even as
the green herb have I given you all things. Genesis
9:3
Not every "herb" bears seed, and not every tree bears fruit. That
rules out some plants as possible food sources. If the green, photosynthesizing
herb was given to us, why do we assume that the non-green, non-seed-bearing,
non-photosynthesizing herbs were given to us? Since every moving thing was
given to us as the green herb was, we know the flesh of moving things is also
given to us with restrictions. The restrictions on eating flesh are more
commonly known, so let's start by examining the situation with herbs.
VEGETATION
LAWFUL HERBS
First, the good news. Most of the vegetation we eat today is lawful. Tubers
like carrots and potatoes; grains like corn and wheat, and all the delicious
varieties of fruits and nuts, garlic, onions and spices we enjoy are approved
under God's law. They all bear seed and live above water. Rice, which spends
some of it's early life submerged in water, isn't as nutritious as wheat,
barley, and other grains that grow completely above water, but is completely
lawful.
FORBIDDEN HERBS
The unlawful herb most likely to be part of your diet is mushrooms.
Mushrooms are fungi, spore-spreading scavengers of the plant world. All forms
of fungus are unlawful to eat as food because they don't meet the criteria of
"bearing seed". What is more, they are not "green"; they
don't photosynthesize. They live like vampires off the corpses of dead plants
and animals, instead of getting their nutrients from the soil. Only experts can
tell which are safe and which are not, and even the experts are fooled
sometimes, and die early deaths from gruesome poisonings.
The other unlawful plants are never eaten in the West: ferns, lichens,
molds, and mosses. Inuit and Japanese people are known to eat "rock
tripe", which is a lichen. Ferns, lichens, molds, and mosses have little
nutritional value for humans, and can be quite dangerous to eat.
SEAWEED
All forms of seaweed are unlawful on the basis that they are not "herbs
of the field". There are no fields underwater. Also, all the commonly
eaten seaweeds like dulce (carrageen), kelp, and rockweed are unlawful on the
grounds that they are forms of algae. Algae do not bear seed.
Many kinds of Japanese, Korean, and Chinese food include seaweed, especially
sushi snacks. Sashimi, which is just slices of raw fish, has no seaweed, and is
lawful to eat.
Many desserts include carrageen because of its good binding and
gelatin-making properties. Jell-O, pudding and cake with pudding layers often
have carrageen and when they do, should not be eaten. Gelatin made of animal
cartilage often includes pork, even when it has a kosher label. Gelatin
products made with
YEAST
And thou shalt bestow that money for whatsoever thy soul
lusteth after … for wine, or for whiskey.
Yeast is an interesting organism. It is really good at sucking up the types
of vitamins, nutrients, and proteins that are good for humans. If you eat live
yeast, this has a negative effect, because the yeast will eat up the nutrients
and things that were supposed to be used by your body. If the yeast is dead
however, they are a potent, bountiful source of easily digested nutrition.
Yeast is an essential component in bread and fermented alcoholic drinks.
Both involve dead yeast, not live yeast. In the baking process, yeast not only
dies, but disappears, leaving behind it's payload of nutrition. In the case of
alcohol, the yeast goes dormant and flocculates to the top or bottom, where it
is strained out of the beverage of happiness.
And
Baked goods made with yeast, "Nutritional Yeast", and fermented
liquids, both alcoholic and vinegary, are lawful. One delicious Italian dish,
Focaccia bread, is eaten just as described in the Bible; you tear it into
pieces, and dip them in vinegar.
What is leaven? During the week-long Festival of Unleavened Bread is it
unlawful to eat goods made out of sourdough (leaven). Beer (shekar) used to be
made with leavened bread. I don't know whether beer was allowed during the
Seven of Unleavened. Today's beer is made differently, and throwing out the
carefully cultivated strains of domestic yeast would bring the industry to a
standstill. Yeshua drank wine at the Passover meal, so probably wine was
allowed during the rest of the festival. And if that is the case, maybe beer
and vinegar were allowed also. This is speculation; I don't know. If anyone
does know, please contact me immediately.
FLESH
LAWFUL FLESH
Whatsoever parteth the hoof, and is cloven-footed, and
cheweth the cud, among the beasts, that shall ye eat.
When it comes to meat, we have more good news. The only common meat that is
unlawful is pork. The other common meats are lawful, to wit, beef, lamb, goat,
and venison. The milk of these animals is also lawful. Antelope, bison,
buffalo, elk, gazelle, giraffe, moose and reindeer are also lawful. The criterion
for lawful meat is that the animal must split the hoof and chew the cud.
FORBIDDEN FLESH
Anything without hooves is unlawful. This rules out reptiles, rodents, and
anything with paws. Apes, cats, dogs, snakes and turtles are unlawful meats
commonly eaten in
Some animals have hooves, but don't split them, or don't properly split
them. Members of the horse family, including donkeys, horses and zebras, are
unlawful for this reason. Some other animals chew the cud, but don't have
hooves, such as rabbits and guinea pigs. Camels chew the cud, but their hooves
are only partially split.
Finally, we have animals that have split hooves, but don't have a cud to
chew. The only example I know of such a meat is swine. People have thought that
today our cleaner techniques for raising, slaughtering, and cooking pigs make
them clean and safe. Science however has shown that for all our modern
technology, pork is still a toxic and dangerous meat. A pigs body is structured
in such a way that no amount of clean diet and clean environment will make it
clean. It is not healthy to even touch a pig.
The tapir, in modern times classified as a swine, may be lawful to eat. It
chews the cud, and splits the hoof. It is also a vegetarian, unlike the pig.
The only reason I hesitate with the tapir, is that the hoof is not split into
two portions, but into three.
CANNIBALISM
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God
created he him; male and female created he them. Genesis
1:27
The Bible says that "man is made in God's image". To desecrate a
human body would be to disrespect "God's image". And to disrespect
God's image is to disrespect God.
He that toucheth the dead body of any man shall be unclean
seven days. Numbers 19:11
If it makes you unclean for seven days merely to touch a dead human body,
how much more unclean does it make you to eat a human corpse?
Human beings don't have hooves, so it is impossible for them to split the
hoof. Neither do human beings chew the cud, nor have any cud to chew. We are
thus unlawful to eat as food. Apes and monkeys are unlawful to eat for these
same reasons.
FLYING FOWL
Doves, pigeons, and quail are the only birds that we know for sure are
lawful. Doves, and pigeons, because they were accepted as sacrifices. Quail,
because
Duck, goose, and swan are not allowed, as they fit into the category of
diving, web-footed birds. Not eating duck isn't such a great loss; the small
amount of non-fatty meat one can get from them makes it wasteful to use them as
food anyway. The majority of duck and goose meat is forbidden under the law
against eating fat.
The eggs of all lawful birds are lawful to eat. There is nothing in the
Bible specifically forbidding the eggs of unclean birds, but I personally will
not touch them.
It may be a surprise to some that many consider birds of the order
Carnivorous and scavenging fowl of various types such as eagles, owls,
pelicans, ravens, seagulls, storks, vultures, etc, are unlawful. Ostrich and
emu, which some have tried to promote as a food source, is unlawful.
SEAFOOD
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
The Law says only water-creatures with fins and scales may be eaten. This
leaves the most commonly eaten fish, such as salmon, ling cod, albacore tuna,
trout, bass, pike, walleye pickerel, perch, smelt, sardines, and tilapia as
lawful to eat. This lawfulness naturally includes their roe, or eggs, known as "caviar".
Everything else living in the waters, whether of ocean or river, is forbidden.
Halibut, eulachon, some kinds of tuna, some kinds of cod, catfish, eel,
sturgeon, swordfish, some kinds of sailfish and flying fish are forbidden.
Swordfish and sturgeon have scales when they are young, but lose them when they
reach maturity. If it helps you judge their kosherness, sturgeon urinate
through their skin. If you don't skin them immediately on catching them, the
meat is tainted. This is identical to sharks and their method of urination
through the skin.
For all practical purposes, in today's Western world, God's seafood law
means no mollusks. Clam, crab, lobster, mussel, oyster, and shrimp fall into
this category. Other unlawful water dwellers commonly eaten outside the West
are alligator, crocodile, dolphin, dugong, manatee, seal, shark, squid, walrus,
and whale.
Frogs are an interesting case. Not only are they forbidden as aquatic
creatures, but they don't meet the criteria for a lawful "leaping"
land creature either, nor do they meet the criteria of splitting the hoof and
chewing the cud for non-leaping land animals. Frogs were chosen to embody the
three "unclean" and disgusting spirits coming forth from the beast’s
mouth in the book of Revelation. (Revelation 16:13) When you understand that
frogs were already considered unclean, you can understand the repugnance that
was supposed to be attached to these unclean spirits. You will notice that in
Japanese cartoons for children, such as "Spirited Away", the benevolent
ghosts and spirits are often depicted as frogs. This clearly contrasts with the
Bible view of frogs.
INSECTS
Even these of them ye may eat; the locust after his kind,
and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the
grasshopper after his kind.
The grasshopper family, including crickets, grasshoppers, and locusts are
lawful to eat. The word "beetle" is an incorrect translation of the
Hebrew "chargol", which is a kind of grasshopper. If someone offers
you a candied grasshopper, remember that John the Baptist lived on locusts and
honey all the time that he wandered in the desert. They're kind of crunchy,
like a cross between potato chips and mildly roasted peanuts, but with a
richer, more interesting flavor.
If you miss eating shrimp, grasshopper is a very passable substitute.
Keith Hunt says: "grasshoppers have a crop, gizzard, gastric caeca and
a stomach, in that order, from front to back. Truly, they could be classified
as "clean birds" according to the Mishnah!" Like the other clean
birds, grasshoppers eat a clean diet.
All other insects are not lawful. This includes ants, bees, beetles,
butterflies, caterpillars, cockroaches, dragonflies, flies, mosquitoes, slugs,
snails, and worms. The honey of bees however, is lawful.
BLOOD
But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof,
shall ye not eat. Genesis 9:4
For it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the
life thereof: therefore I said unto the
That which dieth of itself, or is torn with beasts, he shall
not eat to defile himself therewith: I am the LORD. Leviticus
22:8
The Bible says eleven different times, "do not eat blood". It must
be a pretty important restriction. Science has revealed that the blood stream
acts as a gigantic
Even when a clean animal is slaughtered, it is not clean to eat until the
blood is drained out of it. The Bible doesn't say how to do this. The important
thing is that an honest attempt is made to get the majority of the blood out.
In the West, the
Kosher and Halal butchering methods, where the butcher slits the animals
throat and lets it bleed to death, are very quick and humane. The precedent for
kosher slaughter is in Exodus 12:46, where it says the Passover lamb must be
slaughtered without breaking any bones. Nowhere is kosher slaughter commanded
in the scriptures, but my personal experience is that the animal drifts off to
sleep very quickly, with no apparent pain or thrashing around.
Kosher meat preparation includes extensive washing with water and then using
salt to "suck" the remaining fluid out of the meat for several hours.
I personally have never tasted kosher meat, but have read that it is very
tender and tasty. On the other hand I have heard that kosher meat has "no
flavor". And another person told me that kosher meat is tasty "if you
use the proper spices". Such measures in meat preparation is a matter of
conscience. I personally do not view meat juice the same as the "life
blood" that drains out immediately after slaughter.
Meat from animals that die by themselves, or are found dead, are unlawful to
eat. In former days this usually meant animals that were killed by other animals
and partially eaten. Today this includes roadkill. This law is a direct
consequence of the necessity to bleed a food animal immediately after it dies.
Unless you control the circumstances of the animals death, you have no idea
what kind of poisons were inserted into its body by the killing predator, or if
it died of some disease.
Blood is to be poured into the ground. This precludes its use for other
purposes, such as creating serums for vaccines. This also precludes dumping it
into the sewage system, which almost always leads to the river or ocean. Blood
contains a lot of minerals and nutrients; when disposed of into the
FAT
It shall be a perpetual statute for your generations
throughout all your dwellings, that ye eat neither fat nor blood. Leviticus 3:17
Speak unto the children of
Today's manufacturers of hamburger meat and hot dogs inject fat until it
reaches a concentration of 30%. Is it any wonder that we are dying of heart
disease, clogged arteries, and strokes? Next time you eat at McDonald's
remember that that tasty burger is forbidden under Yahweh's Law.
Animal fats are "trans fats". When vegetable fats, called
"oils" are hydrogenated, they become chemically identical to animal
fats. So if you eat hydrogenated oil in any form, you are breaking the
ordinance against eating fat, and will reap the bad health consequences.
This Law refers to the body fats of clean animals, not to milk fats. Milk
fats are healthy and good for you.
It is forbidden to eat fat. Some consider this to mean that all fatty parts,
such as kidneys, tongue, and skin, should be thrown away. I agree with this.
There is some fat present even in lean meat. That is why it is a good idea not
to eat too much meat. Once a week, once a month, or just in the wintertime, is
good. All clean meat containing fat needs to be roasted. As with blood, you
can't remove all fat from meat, but you should remove what you reasonably can.
There should at least be no big chunks or layers of fat left in the meat when
you eat it.
Whatever fat drains away from the animal, you can use for anything except
cooking and eating.
Food that is roasted together with meat, so that the fat of the meat comes
in contact with it, is unlawful to eat. Gravy, which is made from the juices
that come out of roasted meat, is unlawful until you remove the fat. To make
lawful gravy, you refrigerate it. This makes the fat form a crust on top. You
can remove the crust of fat, then the gravy is fine.
INTERNAL ORGANS
Kosher and Halal laws forbid eating various internal organs. However, at the
first Passover, the Israelites were commanded to roast a sheep whole, only
bleeding it. They were instructed to eat the whole thing. When making an
offering, the kidneys and fatty membrane encasing the liver were to be burnt on
the altar, and never eaten.
Once you smell the intense odor of cooked kidney, you can detect the same
smell in heart meat, although to a lesser degree. Having smelled kidney once,
the odor was so pungent that I cannot even eat heart meat now. Heart meat is
very lean and tasty, but the uric smell is probably telling us that it is not
good.
Tongue is an extremely fatty organ. You cannot cook the fat out of it, just
as with duck meat. Because of the law against eating fat, I do not eat tongue.
DAIRY PRODUCTS AND BABY FOOD
By "baby food" I do not mean food for human babies. Milk, eggs,
honey, nuts and grains are all "baby food". They are all very pure,
easy to digest, and extremely nutritious packets of food made by their
respective species to feed their "babies". They are also some of the
most beneficial foods a human can eat, full of vitamins, minerals, proteins,
and extremely
Cheese, cottage cheese, keifer, yogurt, and curds and whey are direct
derivatives of milk. As the milk is lawful, so are these milk products. The
eggs of clean birds are lawful to eat, and so is the roe of clean fish, since
roe is just fish eggs.
And he took butter, and milk, and the calf which he had
dressed, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree, and they
did eat. Genesis 18:8
Jewish Kosher rules say that dairy products and meat must not be mixed. The
classic example of a kosher forbidden food is the cheeseburger. God himself
disagrees with the Rabbis, since he set the example by sitting down and eating
meat, milk, and butter together at the same meal.
Honey is a clean food, but shouldn't be given to babies who are less than
twelve months old. Bees sometimes mistakenly collect botulism spores along with
their pollen. When eaten, the human intestine kills the resulting
LAW FOR FEEDING LIVESTOCK
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. Genesis 1:30
Not only does the Bible specify what foods are fit for humans, but it
specifies what foods are fit for animals. Some animals are carnivores, but
since they are not lawful to eat, their diets need not concern us. The animals
that are clean to eat, cows, sheep, and goats, are supposed to eat "green
herbs". Seaweed, moss, lichen, and fungi are not lawful animal food.
If today's
We humans were given the very best of the foods, and what we leave behind
was ordained to be food for the animals. When we eat grain, God grants the hay
that is left over to the animals. When we eat vegetables, God grants the
remaining parts of the plant to the animals. Even when we are vegetarians, we still
wind up on top of the food chain!
LAWS FOR AGRICULTURE
Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt
prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof; but in the seventh year
shall be a
Ye shall keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle
gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed:
neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woolen come upon thee. Leviticus 19:19
MERCY
Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk. Exodus 23:19
And whether it be cow or ewe, ye shall not kill it and her
young both in one day. Leviticus 22:28
If a bird's nest chance to be before thee in the way in any
tree, or on the ground, whether they be
And God created great whales, and every living creature that
moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every
winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them,
saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the
seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. Genesis 1:20,21
Because we are at the top of the food chain, we need to show mercy and
restraint in our eating habits. The Jews interpret these laws in a purely
nutritional sense, saying that you cannot eat meat together with dairy
products. This is false and unbiblical. These rules exist to remind us of God's
mercy, and our human duty to extend that mercy to all the plants and animals
which God put under our dominion.
God commanded the animals to swarm and multiply and fill the earth. By
obeying the scriptures cited at the beginning of this section, we not only show
mercy to the animals, but we show respect for the divine mission that God gave
them. If you take eggs from a nest, you must leave the mother alone; you may
not kill and eat her. Likewise, if you take a goats kid away, you may not cook
the kid in its own mothers milk. It is a heinous crime to make a parent
participate in the death of their innocent child. The world was horrified when
reports came from
Although not directly discussed in scripture, the principle of mercy applies
to methods of slaughter too. To be merciful, one must kill the animal quickly
and painlessly, and start draining the blood as soon as possible. When one
injures an animal while hunting, one has an obligation to locate it as quickly
as possible and finish the kill, so it dies with as little agony as possible.
CONCLUSION
Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin
is the transgression of the law. 1 John 3:4
Should you follow these laws today? The food laws predated Moses. Noah knew
which animals were clean and unclean. Abel, son of the first man, Adam, raised
and ate sheep, a clean and lawful meat. God gave the law directly to Adam
concerning which vegetation he could and could not eat. Is it not reasonable
that after the Flood, when men were authorized to eat meat, they would be
restricted in that aspect of their diet too?
Yeshua said that the things you eat would not make you unholy. However, God
did not send out his word for it to have no effect. Even today, if we follow
God's food laws, we will enjoy health benefits, including longer life. Even if
you don't believe in God or in the keeping of his laws, for the sake of your
health this particular set of laws is still worth following.
Good health to you!
REFERENCES
- Keith Hunt's detailed and
thorough Bible Food
Laws series of articles.
- Thomas H. Nelson, LL.B. wrote
an important tract, Health
and the Mosaic Law. It is a simple, quick read on the filthiness of
the pig.
- The Adverse Influence
of Pork Consumption on Health, by Professor Hans-Heinrich Reckeweg,
M.D. is a longer, more detailed account of the perils of the common pig.
- Soil and Health,
Steve Solomons website about agriculture and nutrition. - Many mature and loving Christians
in the
Lower Mainland area gently helped me understand that the food laws had health benefits, and included more than just which meats to eat and not eat.