According to Genesis, mankind was vegetarian prior to the Deluge. After the
Flood of Noah, God permitted the eating of meat (Genesis 9) due to the
global climate change and the acceleration of aging from to the dramatic
increase of radiation from the collapse of the water vapor canopy. These
physical stresses require a diet higher in protein than a fruitarian diet
usually supplies.

It appears indeed that all creation was originally designed to eat only
plants, but the curse changed that harmony into the cycle of killing (food
chain) that exists today. Prophecy contains references that this harmony
will one day be restored (e.g. lion laying down with the lamb).

Arthur McConnachie
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> The latter is certainly interesting, because at face value it
> means that *all* animals were supposed to be vegetarians as well.
> That implies that before the fall there was not an animal food
> chain as we know it.
>
> Either that or it implies that we are reading it wrong.  For
> example, in Gen 1:29, where it says "It shall be food for you,"
> the Hebrew word that is translated as "food" literally means
> "meat."  How can fruits and seeds be meat for us?  Well, maybe we
> should just accept that "meat" means food.  Or perhaps we could
> take a broader interpretation of both passages and say that God
> was saying that green things would serve as the foundation of the
> food chain, as indeed they do.  They are "meat" to us and to
> every other beast precisely because without them there could be
> no meat at all.
>
> Todd Moody
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