Did Adam and Eve Need to Eat Before the Fall? (Special Podcast Highlight)

The Patrick Madrid Show

n this episode of The Patrick Madrid Show, Patrick takes on a curious question from Javier in San Antonio: Did Adam and Eve actually need to eat to stay alive before "the fall?"

Patrick breaks it down by saying that the Catholic Church doesn’t have a solid, definite answer on this, so it's something we can speculate about. He mentions that St. Thomas Aquinas talked about this in his Summa Theologica. St. Aquinas seems to indicate that in the Garden of Eden, eating wasn’t about survival—it was all about enjoyment.

Patrick goes on to explain that before "the fall", life was all about enjoying God’s creation and following His command. No hard work, no stress—just pure bliss with everything they needed at their fingertips. Of course, after "the fall", everything changed, and life got a lot harder. Patrick assumes that because Adam and Eve had regular human bodies, they probably did all the normal human things—like eating and digesting food.

Patrick also suggests checking out Pope Benedict XVI’s book, In the Beginning, if you’re into looking deeper into the creation story. It’s got some great insights on Genesis and how we fit into the big picture.

So, while we don’t have a definite answer, it’s pretty interesting to imagine how Adam and Eve lived in total harmony before things went south.