In Nicene Christianity, including Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, Anglicanism, and Reformed Christianity, there exist no dietary restrictions regarding specific animals that cannot be eaten.
Can Christians Eat Meat? Most Christians eat meat, and may do so believing that God intended animals for our consumption. But as eating animals was not God's intention when He created the world, Christians striving to return to the Garden of Eden increasingly see eschewing meat as one way to get closer to God.
What is the meaning of not eating meat? Abstaining from eating meat reflects the life of Jesus Christ. "Since Jesus sacrificed his flesh for us on Good Friday, we refrain from eating flesh meat in his honor on Fridays," the Archdiocese said.
“The Christian has freedom to eat meat without it being a question of conscience. In fact, not only can they do it, they are blessed when they do it and the source of the meat is not really an issue in the New Testament,” Jamison says. “We are allowed to eat meat from any type of animals.
1 Timothy 4:3-5 King James Version (KJV)
forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.
In Abrahamic religions, eating pig flesh is clearly forbidden by Jewish (kashrut), Islamic (halal) and Adventist (kosher animals) dietary laws. Although Christianity is also an Abrahamic religion, most of its adherents do not follow these aspects of Mosaic law and do consume its meat.
Jesus ate fish and is seen as completely without sin, suggesting that eating fish is not a sin. The Bible does not explicitly state that Jesus ate any meat other than fish, and Webb cites the fact that no lamb is mentioned at the Last Supper as evidence that he did not.
There is no direct statement on the subject by Jesus in the New Testament. The story of Jesus feeding fish to people would support the view that Jesus may have been a pescatarian. Paul seems to have been more open to meat eating, but even Paul was open to vegetarianism.
After the Great Flood, God changes the rule, allowing consumption of meat: “Every creature that lives shall be yours to eat; as with the green grasses, I give you all these” (Gen. 9:3). There are, however, restrictions: “You must not, however, eat flesh with its life-blood in it.
Christians may eat pork because God has declared it once more to be clean. “What God has declared clean you must not call common” (Acts 10:15). Pork is one of those “foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth” (1Timothy 4:3).
These include religions that originated in India, such as Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism. With close to 85% of India's billion-plus population practicing these religions, India remains the country with the highest number of vegetarians in the world.
The only dietary restrictions specified for Christians in the New Testament are to "abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from meat of strangled animals" (Acts 15:29), teachings that the early Church Fathers, such as Clement of Alexandria and Origen, preached for believers to follow.
“We eat, drink, and abstain to the glory of God only when we, like Jesus, taste God himself as our choicest food.” Unlike Adam and Eve, Jesus ate (and abstained) in the presence of this unfathomably good God. And so, when he ate, he gave thanks to the Giver (Matthew 14:19; 1 Corinthians 11:24).
On Good Friday, it's tradition to eat fish rather than meat. According to Christians, Jesus sacrificed his flesh on what is now known as Good Friday. This is why traditionally, people abstain from meaty flesh on Good Friday. Fish is viewed as a different kind of flesh, and so is favoured over meat on Good Friday.
The four classifications of food (trees that yield seed, plants that yield seed, field plants, clean meat) is the foundation of a Biblical diet. There are also other important things you should consider when starting or following a Biblical diet: Water, sunshine and exercise.
Because some animals are conscious, they have interests and can flourish in a way that matters morally. But for many kinds of animals (cows, sheep, chickens), in order to exist and flourish in that way there must be a practice of eating them. Therefore, we should eat them.
What would Jesus eat? A diet rich in fruits, vegetables, grains, breads, beans, legumes, milk, fish and some meat would have been available 2,000 years ago in the Holy Land — the Fertile Crescent between Egypt and ancient Mesopotamia.
So it is likely that the fish eaten by Jesus was tilapia from the Sea of Galilee. Tilapia (St. Peter's fish) and carp still populate the region and are often eaten throughout the Israeli Holy Land.
Instead of going vegetarian, some Buddhists will opt to prioritize preventing food waste over vegetarianism. While alive, the Buddha merely restricted his intake of meat but did not fully ban it. In fact, the Buddha's last meal was tainted pork which led to the Buddha contracting food poisoning and death.
Religion professor White said he knows no biblical scholars who believe Jesus was a vegetarian. They assume Jesus ate meat because it was the practice of the time. Lamb, for example, traditionally was part of the Passover meal and probably would have been included in the Last Supper.
"God's favorite food is bread because he saved the Israelites with manna (a kind of bread)," says Emily, 12. "And he had the Passover with his disciples sharing the bread, which was the symbol of his body. That was the last food he ate before he died on the cross to save us from our sins."
Today, the real biblical controversy tends to come via this important question: But didn't Jesus eat meat? In fact, it is written that Jesus ate fish after the resurrection but there is no explicit mention of him eating meat other than fish. At the Last Supper (Luke 24), there is mention only of bread and wine.
Many biblical scholars believe that Jesus was a vegetarian. Jesus' message is one of love and compassion, and there is nothing loving or compassionate about factory farms and slaughterhouses, where billions of animals live miserable lives and die violent, bloody deaths.
Daniel and his vegan pals win their argument, and the guard becomes their ally, removing their food and giving them legumes instead. The other famous vegans of the Bible are the first humans, Adam and Eve.
The short answer: a lot of bread. Bread was a staple in the typical daily diet in the first-century Greco-Roman world, supplemented with limited amounts of local fruits and vegetables, oil, and salt. Bread in first-century Galilee would have been made with wheat or barley flour.