Health Article – 6: Watch what you Eat

Don’t Eat the Fat

God clearly commanded the Israelites not to eat the fat (Lev. 3:17, 7:23, 24).

¹⁷ It is a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all your dwellings: you shall not eat any fat or any blood (Lev. 3:17).

²³ “Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, ‘You shall not eat any fat from an ox, a sheep or a goat. ²⁴ Also the fat of an animal which dies and the fat of an animal torn by beasts may be put to any other use, but you must certainly not eat it (Lev. 7:23-24).

Dr Vickler writes, “The fat you eat is the fat you wear”. This statement vividly describes those who thrive on high fat diet. Sooner than later the fat in the plate sits in various part of the body and you find it more difficult to remove than when you put it into your body.

Not all fats are the same. Animal fats appear to be what God was commanding us not to eat.

Eat these Fat

Natural plant-based are much more easily digested and healthier for our bodies. For examples raw nuts and seeds, avocados, extra virgin olive oil, and coconut have many health benefits all of which appear to have the good cholesterol.

My Experience

1. Immediately I switch to the Genesis diet, eating the Superfoods listed earlier such as properly washed kale leaves (inexpensive and acts fast, easily absorbed and you feel the effect right away), pure tomato juice,  and Salmon fish I felt much better and felt no longer tired after meals. My family is now on board with the meal. Our son, David, likes kale leave and I noticed it reduced the pimples on his face. I did try to wash a breakfast meal down with a glass of 2% milk and felt tired so I resolved to go on soy milk or similarly rather than the animal milk (JA Journaling).
2. I have significantly reduced my consumption of meat and dairy products hoping to get it to an average of 90% in a little while.  Meanwhile I resolved to substitute my meat consumption with more of healthy fish like salmon and choose soy milk instead of the 2 percent animal-based dairy milk. In a social gathering, I could participate taking a little here and there without excess because even in the Bible there are feast days when we are to eat the fat (or rich foods, Neh. 10:8). I hope to become stricter, becoming more vegetarian with my diet, but not professing myself to be fully so. After all the essence is to become healthier and anything biblical promotes my sound health I am willing to give in to it.

A Vegetarian Diet greatly enhances your Strength

Athletic performance is greatly improved with vegetarian diet. However, there is scientific evidence that athletic performance at very high level requires some trace elements found only in sufficient quantity in red meat when consumed one time, these athletes designed their diets suitable for their individual performances.

In a Gatorade Sports Science institute journal, Susan Kleiner PhD, RD, a high-performance nutritionist titled her research paper “The role of meat in an athlete diet: its effect on key Macro and Micro-nutrients”. She points out the deficiency that may arise for athletes. Her key points are.

1. “In the typical Western diet, meats such as beef, lamb, pork, veal, poultry, and fish are the predominant sources of protein, B vitamins, iron, and zinc.”

2. “Iron and zinc are the two nutrients most often deficient in vegetarian or modified-vegetarian diets. Also, iron and zinc are the most cited nutrients that may be deficient in the diet of athletes.”

3. “Athletes who choose to exclude meat from their diets must carefully plan diets to enhance nutrient availability, particularly for iron and zinc.”

Meat Eaters versus Vegans

Notwithstanding the long-term deficiencies that others argue could arise from going completely vegan, could arise, In Diet for a New America, author John Robbin described several laboratory studies comparing meat eaters with vegetarians in strength and endurance. The result showed vegetarians were two to three times stronger.

Similarly, in spiritual matters, amplification is all that matters. A vegan diet improved tenfold the performance of the mind of Daniel and his other three Hebrew colleagues in terms of wisdom, knowledge and understanding (Dan. 1:17-21).

All said, after reading about both sides of the argument,  I plan to cut my meat consumption by 95%, eating it only very rarely, probably once or twice a month.  I suppose this will be a good target for me to be at peak performance mentally and physically.

Three Diets in Scriptures

1. The Genesis diet the healthiest

2. Clean Meats (the next healthiest)

3. Unclean meats is an abomination (Lev. 11:10,12)

Why I don’t believe the New Testament changes these Health Laws

1. Acts 10:28-29

2. 1 Tim 4:4

3. Romans 14 understood in the context of 1 Cor. 8

When an orthodox Jew says food, is he including unclean meat?

The Corinthian question is could one eat food, (i.e. clean animals) which have been offered to idols?” Paul says it is acceptable, as long as it doesn’t cause a fellow Christian to stumble (i.e. a Christian brother who is not sure if is proper to eat food – clean meat – which has been offered to idols).

4.  1 Cor. 10:23 – “… all things are lawful for me” does not mean Paul can now go out and commit adultery. He means that even though the Old Testament law would allow him to eat clean meats offered to idols, he will not do so if it causes someone else to stumble.

5. Matthew 15:11 “It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a man; but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man”. (See also Mark 7:19 where it adds the phrase, thus He declared all foods are clean”.)

The discussion here is not dietary foods that makes a person clean spiritually. Eating meats or some other unclean meats will not send you to hell. However, statistics indicate quite convincingly that it will get you to heaven sooner.