God Was Not a Vegan

Genesis 4:2–5

When they grew up, Abel became a shepherd, while Cain cultivated the ground. When it was time for the harvest, Cain presented some of his crops as a gift to the Lord. Abel also brought a gift — the best portions of the firstborn lambs from his flock. The Lord accepted Abel and his gift, but he did not accept Cain and his gift.

Depending on how you interpret Old Testament scripture, you may come away from this passage wondering if Cain was the very first Vegan. Why else would he think that God would appreciate his gift of vegetables? The disappointment he showed when God looked with favor on Abel’s gift of lamb chops and ignored his gift set off what might have been the very first temper tantrum.

Veganism is a type of vegetarian diet that excludes meat, eggs, dairy products, and all other animal-derived ingredients. Many vegans also do not even eat foods that are processed using animal products like lard and butter.

So what vegetables did Cain place in his gift basket for God? Here are some possible choices:

Peas

The oldest known vegetable, the Pea, was found in Stone Age settlements dating to 8,000 to 10,000 years ago.

Carrots
History of carrots spans the last five thousand years and tells the incredible tale of its domestication in the fields of ancient Iran and Afghanistan, expansion to the Egypt and China, popularity in medieval Europe and finally, birth of the common orange carrot in the scientific circles of 17th century Netherlands.

Cucumbers
Cucumber is a popular cultivated plant in the gourd family Cucurbitaceae that managed to captivate our attention from the moment it appeared in ancient India. Since that pivotal moment over 4000 years ago, cucumber was spread beyond Indian borders, moved through Ancient Greece, Rome, Europe, New World, China, and eventually becoming fourth most widely cultivate vegetable in the world

Garlic
Garlic is one of the oldest known food flavouring and seasoning plant that managed to infuse itself into culinary tradition of many civilisations across the world. It started its journey in central Asia, domesticated during Neolithic times, spread to the Middle East and northern Africa in 3000 BC, which quickly enabled it to reach Europe

Onions
Onions are one of the oldest cultivated vegetables in our history, originating in central Asia from where it spread across entire world. Modern archaeologists, botanists and historians are unable to determine exact time and place of their first cultivation (because this vegetable is perishable and its cultivation leaves little to no trace), however some written records enables us to paint a very interesting picture about its origins.

Beans
Bean is one of the earliest cultivated plants. The oldest findings and proofs that we used beans for food are 9,000 years old and were found in Thailand. Wild variants of broad beans (fava beans) were gathered in Afghanistan and the Himalayan foothills. Beans were also found in the tombs of the kings of the ancient Egypt where they were left as the food for the departed and their souls in the afterlife. The first cultivated beans appeared 4,000 years ago in the Aegean, Iberia, and transalpine Europe and they were large-seeded broad beans. From the about the same time date beans found in Guitarrero Cave, an archaeological site in Peru which proves that beans appeared practically everywhere and where one of the staple foods of the early peoples. When the first colonists arrived at the New World, Native Americans taught them to grow beans with corn so the bean plants can climb the cornstalks.

Spinach
Spinach was a highly regarded vegetable since the earliest days by all that grew and consumed it. Today we have cultivated variants that give more leaves, are tastier and are a good source of vitamins and minerals.

Beetroot
Oldest archeological proofs that we used beetroot in ancient times were found on the Neolithic site of Aartswoud in the Netherlands and in Saqqara pyramid at Thebes, Egypt, which dates from the time of the Third Dynasty (third millennium BC).

Artichokes
Varieties of artichokes have records of use as a food among the ancient Greeks and Romans. Artichoke can be, at the first glance, a strange choice of food because it is a flower but we have been eating them for thousands of years. It can be prepared in many interesting variants.