Christians don't universally have to avoid meat, but many traditions practice meat abstinence on specific days (like Lent Fridays, Ash Wednesday, Good Friday) to honor Jesus' sacrifice, viewing it as penance or a way to focus on spiritual matters over physical desires, with Orthodox Christianity linking it to mastering passions. While Genesis suggests an initial vegetarian diet, the Bible also permits meat, leading to diverse Christian views, with some vegans seeing it as closer to Eden's ideal, while most denominations allow it as a gift from God.
This meat, whilst allowable under the law, is regarded unfavourably within scripture. In its original Hebrew, the language of Deuteronomy 12 associates the permission to kill and eat animals outside the sacrificial system, with lust, wickedness, law-breaking, rebellion against God and the Fall.
Since Jesus sacrificed his flesh for us on Good Friday, we refrain from eating flesh meat in his honor on Fridays. Flesh meat includes the meat of mammals and poultry, and the main foods that come under this heading are beef, pork, chicken, and turkey.
Any animal that has cloven hooves and chews the cud can be eaten. Aquatic animals can be eaten so long as they have fins and scales. Winged insects are permissible so long as they have joints in their legs above their feet. All other animals falling outside of these definitions were seen as 'unclean'.
Christian dietary laws vary between denominations. The general dietary restrictions specified for Christians in the New Testament are to "abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from meat of strangled animals".
The main reason God categorized certain animals as “unclean” was to highlight the difference between holiness and sin. Dietary laws controlled what individuals put into their bodies.
The moral and spiritual ambiguity about eating meat is made more explicit in the ninth chapter of Genesis (Genesis 9:3-6) when God tells Noah in the covenant made with him after the Great Flood, "Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.
God states that cud-chewing animals with split hooves can be eaten (Leviticus 11:3; Deuteronomy 14:6). These specifically include the cattle, sheep, goat, deer and gazelle families (Deuteronomy 14:4-5). He also lists such animals as camels, rabbits and pigs as being unclean, or unfit to eat (Leviticus 11:4-8).
Additionally, three other passages record that cannibalism happened in Israel's history (2 Kgs 6:24-31; Lam 2:20; 4:10). However, none of these passages directly condemn eating human flesh. But, the implication is that resorting to eating human flesh is one of the final judgments for sin.
Genesis 9:3-4 New International Version (NIV)
Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything. “But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it.
The Bible talks a lot about food and eating. Ecclesiastes 9:7 says, “Go, eat your bread with pleasure, and drink your wine with a cheerful heart, for God has already accepted your works.” 1 Corinthians 6:13a says, “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food.” We cannot live a full life on empty.
What ought to be: God never intended for us to eat animals. After all, the Garden of Eden was vegan: “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'” (Genesis 1:29).
Wild game organs can have higher amounts of chemicals and metals than the meat: The liver and kidneys filter chemicals and metals from the blood. This can lead to high amounts of chemicals and metals in the organs. Some chemicals can build up in the brain of animals.
Look again at our text, Mark 7:18- 19, “Nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him unclean, for it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach and then out of his body. And saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.” Paul said the same thing about food.
In Genesis God commands us to eat plants and only in the beginning of Genesis 9 do we get permission to eat animals. Since then, all foods have been made clean by Jesus (Mark 7:19). Scripture also says this: “For instance, one person believes it's all right to eat anything.
Old Testament
Some Christians interpret that to mean that vegetarianism was part of God's original purpose and plan for both man and the animals. Because of that, they've decided that vegetarianism is a necessary part of a redeemed and sanctified life.
Chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, quail and pheasants do not appear on this list of unclean birds and are considered clean—okay for us to eat. Most insects are not good to eat, but God says some insects, such as locusts, grasshoppers and crickets, are okay to eat (Leviticus 11:22).
Cooking with pork isn't without risk. "In places around the world with high pork consumption, an infection called trichinosis is a concern. The infection can be fatal. It is caused by the Trichinella roundworm, which is found in undercooked and raw pork," says Burdeos.
So if you eat the animals which have been created to be eaten, you're not doing a sin. Similarly, Quran also says certain animals have been created to be eaten, but if you eat the other animals which have not been created for eating, minutes of sin.
Indeed, caring for the earth and the animal kingdom was God's first mandate to humans (Genesis 1:26-28). On the other hand, after the Flood, we are told that God permitted humans to eat meat (Genesis 9:3). God later included eating meat as a part of the Passover celebration.
But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so whenever he lay with his brother's wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from producing offspring for his brother. What he did was wicked in the LORD's sight; so he put him to death also.
7 Yet of those that chew the cud or have the hoof cloven you shall not eat these: the camel, the hare, and the vrock badger, because they chew the cud but do not part the hoof, are unclean for you. 8 And the pig, because it parts the hoof but does not chew the cud, is unclean for you.
Taken by itself, Matt. 7:6 is a weird thing to say: “Don't give holy things to dogs, don't throw your pearls to pigs, lest they trample them under their feet and, turning, tear you to pieces” (author's translation).