This week we ask a rather ridiculous but curious question: "Is God a Vegetarian?" Although perhaps unconvinced to join Tyler's vegetarian ways, Austin plays along in exploring what Christian tradition has to say about eating animals, whether we can be vegetarian for the wrong reasons, and how our separation from the food we eat has changed our culture.  Let's put shovel to soil and journey together to find some concrete ways to get closer to our food.
Have a question, topic idea, gardening tip, anything? Email us at [email protected].
LINKS & SHOW NOTES

• Eating Animals - Jonathan Safran Foer
• Genesis 1:28-30 - “God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so."
• Genesis 3:18-23 - “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food…. So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken."
• Genesis 9:1-3 - "Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you will fall on all the beasts of the earth, and on all the birds in the sky, on every creature that moves along the ground, and on all the fish in the sea; they are given into your hands. Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything."
• Isaiah 65 - "The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, but dust will be the serpent's food. They will neither hunt nor destroy on all my holy mountain," says the LORD.”
• Council of Jerusalem - 1st century council where the eating  unclean foods is discussed
• Romans 14 - Paul redirects the conversation about unclean food to righteousness 
• Canon Law - Fasting rituals fall under days of penance
• Israeli Veganism - Akiv Gersh (Jewish Blogger),  Some guidelines for humane treatment of animals:
  • Feeding your animals before you feed yourself.
  • Not causing unnecessary harm or pain to animals.
  • Not slaughtering a mother animal and her offspring on the same day.
  • Not allowing one animal to witness the slaughter of another animal.
  • Slaughter performed by an ordained shochet (ritual slaughterer) who is trained to kill the animal in the quickest possible way in order to minimize the pain of death.