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I would agree with the point made that as per genesis, the original creation was a vegetarian society (as there was no death).
IMO, the idea that there was no death of anything prior to Adam and Eve's (A&E) disobedience is being read into the story not pulled from the story. I disagree that a vegetarian diet was God's original plan for humans or animals.
In Genesis 1:29, God makes a gift of the plants and seeds for food. It doesn't support that meat couldn't be or wasn't eaten. Notice it doesn't include sea creatures and the sea does contain carnivores.
In the A&E story, God tells Adam he may freely eat fruit from every tree except for the tree of knowledge of good and evil (TKGE). According to the story, Adam was put in the garden to maintain it. Now he had permission to eat from it, except for one tree. Also in this story God brings the animals to Adam to name. I haven't found anything in the Bible that tells of renaming the animals after A&E's disobedience. The names for the carnivores lead me to believe that Adam saw them eat.
Here are some of the carnivore names.
(No Death Before the Fall - A Young Earth Problem)
Lion: Strong's #H738 - from H717 "in the sense of violence"11
Eagle: Strong's #H5404 - from an unused root meaning "to lacerate"15
Vulture: Strong's #H653820 - from H6536,21 "to break in pieces, tear"
We also have the issue that if Adam had not seen death, he would not have understood God's warning concerning the TKGE.
After A&E's disobedience; ground cursed, painful toil, eat the grain of the field, and by the sweat of your brow you will eat bread until you return to the ground. (Genesis 3:17-19)
Then God made them clothes from skin. (Genesis 3:21) If no animals died before A&E disobeyed, then God made the first killing for skins. No mention yet that man can eat meat, if they couldn't before.
Now we have the Cain and Abel (C&E) story. Abel raised sheep and Cain cultivated the ground. Abel made an offering from his flock. An offering of an animal usually means death to the animal. Once Cain kills Abel God bans Cain from the ground. The ground will no longer yield its best for Cain. (Genesis 4:12)
The idea that carnivores didn't eat meat before A&E's disobedience leaves us with the question of, when did God recreate the carnivores so that they could eat meat? We have nothing in the stories that present the idea that God revamped the carnivores to eat differently than when he first created them. That's why these stories should be understood as "just so" type stories to explain why things were the way they were, instead being read as historical fact.
After the flood story we see it written that God gave humans everything to eat. (Genesis 9:3) As we can see the humans were already eating meat. At the very least they were already sacrificing animals, and so causing death to animals. If they weren't eating the meat, then they were being wasteful. IMO, that is worse than killing to eat.
In Exodus, God required lamb blood to protect the Hebrews. During the Exodus, God brought quail to the camp as well as bread. (Exodus 16:13)
If God was truly against humans eating meat, he wouldn't have supplied it.
Christians follow the teachings and example of Jesus Christ. Jesus ate fish and lamb.
I see no grand plan of God concerning eating meat or not. IMO, eating vegetarian may have been a means for the early Jews to avoid accidentally eating meat that had been sacrificed to idols.
I see no teachings that would suggest Christians should be vegetarians in following the teachings of Jesus. His teachings were more about personal behavior towards others, not what was eaten.
Humans are a very diverse group. Our ancestors evolved all over the planet to survive on the food in their area. Some will have more access to plants due to weather than others. Others will need to rely on meat more than plants. We aren't a one size fits all group.
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