3 Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.
After the Flood there is a shift in diet. God gives them this change in diet. This is not something Noah and his family came up with on the spur of the moment. They did not develop it after generations of eating only plants. God gave them the change upon their exit from the Ark. There must have been a change either in humans or a change in the environment following the Flood that God knew about that necessitated this change. Some dietary need is met through eating meat that was met through eating plants before the Flood. At this point in history Noah and his descendents must need some meat in order to survive. The Lord makes the change in the rules in order to meet that need. I spend these few moments writing about this because some preach a pre-Flood diet as the answer to all our needs. But God instituted the change in diet. Eating meat is not a curse placed on humankind. Part of God’s provision for Noah and his family, the only family to be obedient and get on the Ark, includes eating meat. Meat is a blessing from the Lord, not a curse. Now I am not talking about steroid enhanced, plugged-full-of-chemical meat that most of us eat today. But I am counteracting the “meat is bad” teaching that floats around the church. If someone chooses to not eat meat for religious reasons, that is up to them. I think meat was and is necessary for our survival following the Flood. I think the climate changed following the Flood and God knew that we would not be able to gather sufficient protein and nutrients just from plant life. We can look back in history and see periods of global cold, the ice ages, when plant life would have been insufficient for most humans to survive. Tropical plants provide an abundance of choices for food. Temperate climates do not offer that same choice. Meat provides a way for God to use animals to provide for the needs of humans. But meat would still have been only a supplement to a diet, not its only component. So that throws out the meat-only diets. The Lord gives Noah and his family both meat and plants to eat. We should do the same.
The Arnold Journey 