Can we eat
ANYTHING we want?

Q. Can we eat anything we'd like? If not, what are we allowed to use as food?

(Submitted by: J. J. )

A. Of course we can eat anything we desire. How about a salad laced with arsenic? Or maybe gobble down what you find behind the barn? The reality is, Joanna, God won't stop us from eating anything, but he has given us a menu of what's good for us and what isn't.

God told Noah,

"Every moving thing that lives shall be meat for you; even -- in the same way -- as the green herb have I given you all things" (Genesis 9:3).

You know the arsenic salad would knock you dead in short order. Certain green herbs, such as digitalis and deadly nightshade, will do the same thing. So we know not to eat them. In the same way there are moving things that live which are not good for us.

We have terrible illnesses with no apparent cause. But the flesh of certain animals slowly breaks down the human system bringing on disease. Ingestion of the genetic code of such animals may be the cause of genetic mutation in the human body. Yet, like the plants, there is much flesh we can eat with no adverse results.

God knows which animals are harmful to the human body. Because he loves us he revealed which ones they are. Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14 gives God's dietary plan for man. Between the two it's pretty easy to determine that deer and cattle are good for food; that pigs and alligators are not.

Clean birds -- clean means good for food -- have six characteristics:

1. They're not birds of prey.

2. If they catch food in the air, they bring it to the ground to eat.

3. They have an elongated middle front toe and a hind toe.

4. They perch with the three front toes on one side of a perch and the hind toe on the other.

5. They have craws or crops.

6. They have a gizzard with a double lining which can easily be separated. If a bird lacks one or more of these characteristics, it is unclean, unsuitable for food.

The use of parts of unclean animals in food preparation is also wrong. This eliminates the use of lard in cooking, or so-called clam juice in beverages. There is also an injunction against the ingestion of blood and fat of clean animals (Leviticus 3:11, 7:23-27). Therefore, even beef fat is to be avoided as a frying and cooking material.

A type of food not mentioned directly in the Bible are mushrooms. Recall God told Noah about the green herbs (Genesis 9:3). Mushrooms are fungus, not herbs, and neither are they green. According to "Dietary Carcinogens and Anticarcinogens" by Bruce Ames, mushrooms, even the supposedly edible kinds, contain cancer-causing agents.

You may wonder about scriptures which seem to say we can eat anything we want. This is not what the Bible says. Consider this: the Bible says when Christ returns, those who eat swine's flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse will be destroyed (Isaiah 66:15-17):

"For, behold, the LORD will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire and by his sword will the LORD plead with all flesh: and the slain of the LORD shall be many. They that sanctify themselves, and purify themselves in the gardens behind one [tree] in the midst, eating swine's flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, shall be consumed together, saith the LORD.

If all animals are now clean, this becomes an empty, meaningless threat.

We are to present our bodies as a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1-2), and should therefore keep them unpolluted. The body is the temple of the holy spirit, and God will destroy anyone who wilfully pollutes it (1Corinthians 3:16-17). The Christian's body, bought and paid for, is now the property of Jesus Christ, and is to be cared for as the owner directs (1Corinthians 6:19-20).