I wanted to blog some deep thought I was having, but to be honest – I haven’t had any today. I’ve been thinking about veganism. Mainly because a friend of ours told us that she was becoming a vegan. Which is fine with me – I eat a bunch of meat, but have no problem with those that don’t. I decided to look up some information on veganism and came across some information that stunned me. I found some people that claimed that ALL Christians are called to be Vegans. It’s not a personal choice to them – we all have to stop eating meat or animal products of any kind if we want to be Godly in their opinion.

I might give a little background here. I grew with vegetarians in the family. Not my immediate family, but some of my Uncles were. Made holidays pretty interesting. Ever heard of Royal American? Nasty meat substitute stuff from the early 80s. Tofu turkey for Thanksgiving was always a low-light. Thankfully, someone came up with the idea of doing “Mexican Stack-up”, so you could put what you want on your plate.

The argument for mandatory Christian veganism is that Adam and Eve didn’t eat meat. Since they didn’t eat meat in the Garden, we are not meant as humans to eat meat, either. To break free from the curse of the Fall when accepting Jesus also means that we break free from the curse of eating meat.

Sounds good at first. But think about it. They didn’t pray in the garden, either. God was right there. So…. we don’t have to pray now, either? They didn’t have to evangelize in the garden – because everyone there (all two of them) were believers. The list could go on.

Using the garden for a template for how to live our lives now is a pretty shaky idea. But even more serious than that is the fact that Jesus ate fish (Luke 24:41-43). And he provided it for his followers when he fed the 5,000 (Luke 9:10-17). If it is a sin to eat meat (like I have read some say) – why would Jesus “sin” like that and require his followers to do that also?

I’ve done a lot of reading on veganism now, and every source says that you have to take vitamin supplements to stay healthy. That means that God would be calling us to do something that requires us to take pill-based vitamins in order to live? When humans were in the garden – they didn’t eat meat because their bodies didn’t need those nutrients. Part of the fall was that our bodies were changed – childbirth became painful, work became laborious, etc. So I am assuming that means we now need those nutrients. Any biologist can tell you that we need nutrients to survive that are only found naturally in animal products. Was that some colossal mistake by God? Just doesn’t add up to me.

Now – don’t get me wrong – if you are vegan or vegetarian – I have no problem with that. Just as long as you have no problem with me eating meat. We do eat vegetarian meals from time to time because they are just good. And I would also go so far as to say that most Americans need to cut waaaaayyy back on the amount of meat they do eat. But that is another issue 🙂