Still in chapter one of the book of Daniel, the diet chosen by the teenagers raises a number of questions for us. Some have seen it as endorsing the case for vegetarianism, as the four boys ended up looking healthier than those who ate the other foods. Fruit and vegetables, after all, were the original diet of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden.
Arguing for vegetarianism on moral grounds (against the killing of animals) doesn't hold water if we remember who was the very first to kill an animal. It was God, in Genesis 3: 21. Granted, this was to make clothing for Adam and Eve; food isn't specifically mentioned at that point. But it does seem likely that meat eating also began around then. Otherwise, how can we explain that Abel's offering (of portions of dead lamb) could be more acceptable to God than Cain's offering from his crops?
We may not know all the factors involved in the Cain and Abel episode of Genesis 4, but it certainly doesn't uphold the viewpoint that God was against the killing of lambs.
Meat is not specifically mentioned in Daniel chapter one, but it is one of the most likely foods that the teenagers felt would "defile" them - not because of the food itself, but because of the laws about how it should be killed, so that the Hebrews didn't eat meat with the blood still in it. Perhaps the Babylonians also ate different kinds of insects, as still happens in parts of Asia today. (I know people in 2019 who won't eat pork or prawns for health reasons because they respect the dietary laws (in the book of Leviticus) which forbade the Jews from eating the meat of such scavengers.)
So, were Daniel and his friends healthier because they ate a vegetarian diet or because God was honouring their choice not to defile themselves? It's more likely to be the latter. (This doesn't deny that vegetables are good for you, or exclude the option that some people might choose to avoid meat for reasons of personal conscience.)
So, where does that leave us in terms of decisions about what we eat today? Most of the meat in our supermarkets is not kosher, and Christians in general tend to eat a variety of meats that were forbidden to the early Israelites. Should we be concerned about that?
It seems not, because the early Christian believers were advised that nothing is unclean: all food is acceptable if it is eaten with thankfulness. This raises the question of whether the Hebrews' early food laws concerning what was "unclean" were more about health than about religion.
The New Testament letters do contain a considerable number of warnings about gluttony - so it does seem that God cares a great deal about whether we're eating too much, and whether the demands of our stomach are becoming like a god to us. (Philippians 3: 19) Otherwise, it seems that New Testament teaching leaves us a huge amount of freedom.
Can we conclude, then, that God doesn't care any more about what we eat?
Well, that might be too simplistic a conclusion, because even though no specific foods are outlawed for the early believers, there's another recurring principle in the New Testament: that our physical bodies are the temple or dwelling place of the Holy Spirit and that we are responsible for how we look after them. (1 Corinthians 6: 19 - 20 - which was written in the context of urging believers not to defile their bodies with sexual immorality.)
So what does that mean for us today? It might not mean avoiding meat or totally ruling out "rich" foods, but it might possibly mean being alert to what could damage our body or our health. How much sugar or fat is too much? How safe are those colourings or artificial sweeteners? What effect does it have on the human body when food is genetically modified or cows are pumped full of antibiotics? How much nutrition is left in a loaf of bread that's packed so full of chemicals and preservatives that it can sit on a shelf for a month and not develop any mould? Why are so many pre-packaged foods full of MSG flavour enhancer, or have more E numbers than real food in their list of ingredients?
Other sobering questions of our day might be, Why are incidences of cancer, even in relatively young people, so much higher than they were in the past? Why is there suddenly so much gluten intolerance and lactose intolerance in the western world - things that were almost unheard of in previous generations? The answer would seem to lie in what human beings in some parts of the world are doing to the food we eat.
When Daniel and his friends reached Babylon, they faced things they'd never had to encounter in Israel. And people in the western world of the 21st century face food choices that simply didn't exist for their grandparents in the 1950s.
The Bible is clear that God doesn't want us to fall into legalism about what we eat and drink. Legalism was a mistake made by the Galatians in New Testament times. And Paul warns Timothy about false teachers who were urging people to abstain from certain kinds of food. (1 Timothy 4: 3)
But perhaps it's worth being a little more informed about our food choices in the modern world and reflecting a little on what might have a negative impact on our health. Perhaps it's worth choosing food that is as close as possible to the way God created it for us to enjoy.
