A Historical,
Environmental, Theological &
Semi-Autobiographical
Foodways Book

Goddess Recipes Included

READ EXCERPTS

• This is a book about the history, theology, and environmental impact of the food we eat. There is evidence that there were early groups of peoples who did not use animals for food. The Jains of India claim that their ancestors were vegetarians from time immemorial. Genesis and the Talmud tell that before the Flood, humans did not kill animals for food. Kosher was originally vegetarian. Plato in the Republic tells of a vegetarian Golden Era and argues that a vegetarian diet is better for the environment, health, and making peace more likely. After the Flood, when Noah was given animals to eat, a curse was included -- a shortened life span....

• Early humans gathered more than hunted. Meat was a small part of their diet. They were not cattle herders. Before around 5500 in the Middle East and before around 4300 BC in Europe, land was farmed, owned, and inherited by women. God was the Goddess, and she taught peace and partnership. Her priests and priestesses were physicians, midwives, and scribes ....

• In Old Europe cities had no walls; where there is no war, there is no need for walls. Around 4300 B.C. the cattle-herding Aryan Indo-Europeans invaded Europe on horseback, seeking new pasture they had overgrazed their own lands, helping desertify them. Sometimes the Aryans killed everyone except the virgin girls, whom they took as slave-wives. They worshiped a male thunder god who desired conquest and domination. They introduced slavery and human sacrifice. The Aryans invaded Persia around 2000 B.C. and India around 1750 B.C. There is mention of similar patriarchal invasions in China. ...

• Pythagoras (579-480 B.C.) -- mathematician, musician, philosopher, physician, opponent of slavery, pacifist, admitted student of women scholars who came before him, and proponent of equal rights for women -- opposed killing animals for food....

• The later Hebrew prophets opposed the sacrificing of animals in the Jerusalem Temple and predicted the coming of a messiah who would end the sacrifices. Numerous ancient writers say that Simon Peter, Matthew, John the Baptist, and James the brother of Jesus were all vegetarians. Judeo-Christian sources say Jesus ate no flesh food opposed animal sacrifice. The Judeo-Christian church for 300 years, until its destruction by gentile Christianity, was vegetarian, believing Jesus to have been a vegetarian....

• Eating a plant-based diet is better for the environment: There are 15 billion factory farm animals, which produce mountains of manure that pollute waters and kill fish. In the U.S. animals eat over 80 percent of corn and soy, and 75 percent of U.S. topsoil has been lost, largely in the cultivation of animal feed. Aquifers are being mined to grow this grain. A third of the world's people go to bed hungry every night....

• Those who eat this way are leaner, avoid numerous diseases that afflict conventional eaters, and live several years longer on average....

• Included is a small, vegan, how-to recipe book, designed so anyone - husbands and children too - can cook their own tasty, nutritious, filling, and healthy food ... and will know what to serve the goddess when she comes for dinner....

• This is a heavily footnoted book. For sake of space, most footnotes have been omitted in the following excerpt.

 Copyright © 2007 James Robert Deal. All rights reserved.