The Adam and Eve Diet

By Claudia Ayers

In The Urantia Book, Adam and Eve were members of a higher order of beings from beyond our world who came here to contribute to the physical, cultural and spiritual evolution of humanity.

This means, of course, that contrary to Biblical legend we are not exclusively descended from Adam and Eve; they were not the first humans. When Adam and Eve showed up in the Garden of Eden nearly thirty-eight thousand years ago, humans had already been evolving physically, mentally, and even spiritually for well over 900,000 years. With a little help from our (celestial) friends, the human evolutionary process was then kicked into a higher gear.

The biology is complicated. Adam and Eve had modified bodies that were reproductively compatible with humans, yet stunningly advanced by comparison.

While there are no pure-line direct descendants of Adam and Eve, most of us do have at least a touch of ancestral biological inheritance derived from them. This is primarily because many generations of their pure-line progeny intermarried with the men and women of Urantia, the name of our world.

The Garden of Eden

In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve joined a partially established community on the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea. People of the time had long been working to establish a cultural center there in preparation for their arrival. 

Among those who did such work were members of staff of a previous visitor to Urantia named the Planetary Prince, who arrived nearly half a million years before Adam and Eve. Those staff members were not from Urantia but had bodies just like human beings. But that’s another story, part of a previous chapter in the amazing history of our planet as told in The Urantia Book.

The Tree of Life

Staff of the Planetary Prince were kept alive for millennia by the “tree of life.” 

“The ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ may be a figure of speech, a symbolic designation covering a multitude of human experiences,” says The Urantia Book, “but the ‘tree of life’ was not a myth; it was real and for a long time was present on Urantia.” 

The tree of life was replanted in Eden to sustain Adam and Eve. They were dependent on it for their life maintenance in the physical form they took when they appeared on Urantia.

“This superplant stored up certain space-energies which were antidotal to the age-producing elements of animal existence. The fruit of the tree of life was like a superchemical storage battery, mysteriously releasing the life-extension force of the universe when eaten.” 73:6.4 

The book adds, however, that “this form of sustenance was wholly useless to the ordinary evolutionary beings on Urantia.” 

What Else Did Adam and Eve Eat?

The food eaten by the celestial couple and their family contrasted considerably from that of the largely hunter-gatherer and pastoral human populations they had come to enhance. By the time of the Garden of Eden, the vast majority of humans had become omnivores. There were still pockets of exclusively carnivorous peoples and others that were largely vegetarian. 

The Urantia Book corroborates the general consensus among Bible scholars that Adam and Eve did not eat meat. Their garden abutted the Mediterranean Sea and the climate favored fruits and nuts. The Bible makes references to their food being sourced primarily from fruit, nuts, seeds, herbs, and grains. Indeed, like the staff of the Planetary Prince before them, Adam and Eve were vegans. But they all had something today’s vegans do not have–the tree of life.

The Urantia Book gives us a glimpse of what the Adam and Eve diet was like in the Garden of Eden:

“The Adamic children did not take milk from animals when they ceased to nurse the mother’s breast at one year of age. Eve had access to the milk of a great variety of nuts and to the juices of many fruits, and knowing full well the chemistry and energy of these foods, she suitably combined them for the nourishment of her children until the appearance of teeth. While cooking was universally employed outside of the immediate Adamic sector of Eden, there was no cooking in Adam’s household. They found their foods–fruits, nuts, and cereals–ready prepared as they ripened. They ate once a day, shortly after noontime.” 74:6.4 

But Adam and Eve’s intake went beyond nutrition. The Urantia Book expands on some of the other energy, originating in space, that was available to sustain the celestial couple. This was in conjunction with their consumption of the fruits of the tree of life.

Changes in Adam and Eve’s Diet

The Urantia Book tells us that when Adam and Eve’s plans to upstep the human race went awry–another interesting story to explore–they had to leave Eden with what was now a large and still-growing family. They decided to journey to the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to set up a second garden. 

In his caravan, Adam carried the seeds and bulbs of hundreds of plants and cereals from the first garden as well as extensive herbs and some domesticated animals. While up to that time Adam and his family had always subsisted on fruits, cereals, and nuts, on the way to Mesopotamia they consumed herbs and vegetables for the first time. 

The eating of meat was introduced into the second garden early on, but Adam and Eve never ate animal flesh as part of their regular diet. Neither did their first generation of children.

In the second garden the couple no longer had access to the tree of life, but with their robust genetics they lived long lives:

“Adam lived for 530 years; he died of what might be termed old age. His physical mechanism simply wore out; the process of disintegration gradually gained on the process of repair, and the inevitable end came. Eve had died nineteen years previously of a weakened heart.” 76:5.5 

For half a millennium their large family continued to interact with neighboring peoples who ate a wide variety of animal products from land sources as well as from saltwater and freshwater habitats. We learn that within a few generations the offspring of Adam and Eve gravitated towards omnivorous lifestyles; they were, after all, blending with the various races of men. 

Influence on Modern Human Diets

This may help explain why human diets vary so greatly today. While hunter-gatherers and herders are all still present on the planet, the overwhelming majority of people are omnivores. Most of us consume planted crops, and some of us even eat foraged wild vegetation. But most of us also consume some domesticated-animal products and some even seek wild-caught and hunted sources of protein. Such diets typically include meat–mostly from ungulates, fish and shellfish, eggs, and dairy products. 

While there are various historic and emerging vegetarian trends, most vegetarians today eat eggs, dairy and other non-flesh animal-sourced products, like honey. Only around one per cent of the human population endeavors towards veganism. 

The Rise of Plant Breeding 

While The Urantia Book does not say so explicitly, it seems clear that early human civilization was involved in major efforts of plant breeding. We learn that the staff of the Planetary Price taught the tribes how to domesticate both plants and animals. I assume that this included training in selective breeding and hybridization. It seems likely to me that Adam and Eve or the staff of the Planetary Prince had bred most of the seeds and bulbs–for food crops or to create fabrics–that the couple carried by caravan to the second garden.

The incomprehensible beauty and diversity that derives from evolution, which I like to call “Mother Nature,” gives wilderness and wildlife all that they need. But the humans on our planet thrive in no small part due to the potentials of agronomy, which our celestial agents so long ago initiated and promoted. 

One of history’s most prolific plant breeders, Luther Burbank, gives one a sense of these past, current, and future potentials. Burbank had a 55-year plant breeding career. In 1871, at the age of 22, he developed the Burbank potato, which was introduced in Ireland to combat the blight epidemic. He sold the rights to the Burbank potato for $150, using these proceeds to travel to Santa Rosa, California. There he established a nursery garden, greenhouse, and experimental farms creating products used throughout the world. 

Burbank carried on his plant hybridization on a huge scale. At any one time he maintained as many as 3,000 experiments involving millions of plants. He developed more than 800 strains and varieties of plants, including 113 varieties of plums and prunes, 10 varieties of berries, 50 varieties of lilies, and the Freestone peach. 

Imagine what Adam and Eve may have taught about plant breeding in the Garden of Eden and in the Second Garden during their hundreds of years of existence. Did their seeds and bulbs from the first garden have something to do with the “cradle of civilization,” also known as the “fertile crescent,” in Mesopotamia? 

Veganism vs Vegetarianism

We can be reasonably confident that Adam and Eve were vegan. But does that suggest that people of faith or virtue should all strive towards this model? 

One must keep in mind that Adam and Eve’s diet was supported by the tree of life and that Adam and Eve had a unique biology. Today’s vegans have neither the genetics of Adam and Eve nor the tree that sustained them. Relatively few human beings over the last million years have been sustained by a vegan diet. In fact, after a few generations, virtually all of Adam and Eve’s progeny were omnivores.

The inclusion of animal products in the diets of vegetarians, of which there are an estimated 1.5 billion on the planet, ensures they get all the nutrition they need. 

But veganism is another thing altogether. According to my research, a vegan diet may have serious deficiencies, particularly for children, babies, and nursing mothers. It is difficult for a vegan diet to supply all essential nutrients. Missing or inadequate nutrients include Vitamin B12, Vitamin D3, essential and long-chained omega-3 fatty acids, zinc, and iodine. 

A significant percentage of people who experiment with vegan diets are known to abandon their pursuit as they discover the negative impacts on their teeth, immune system, stamina, and sleep–even their spiritual health. Two particularly good sources of information about the drawbacks of veganism are The Weston A. Price Foundation and GreenMedInfo.

So please be aware that eating like Adam and Eve may be risky; we humans may not have the heredity to be adequately sustained by their diet. 

However, we have terrific dietary models in the progeny of Adam and Eve, whose descendants promoted agriculture, maintained livestock, and had richly diverse diets. Perhaps our diets will continue to evolve as we deepen our understanding of our earliest ancestors. 

Bon appétit!

Claudia Ayers has a Bachelor of Science degree in Renewable Natural Resource. The views expressed here are her own and do not necessarily reflect those of The Urantia Book Fellowship. This article is not to be taken as medical advice. Readers are urged to consult a medical professional before changing their diet. 

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