GEN171 … the same opening chapter of Genesis, in which man is given the right to “subdue” the earth and to “have dominion” over all living things does not even permit him to use animals for food.  For the very next verse – Genesis 1:29 – declares: "… I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruits; you shall have them for food.”  This is surely a drastic limitation upon man’s rights.  Not until many centuries later, after the Flood, is man (in the person of Noah and his family) permitted to eat meat Genesis 9:3-4.  And even then, all men are forbidden to eat the blood of the creatures they have used for food, because the blood is the seat of life.  Reverence for life dictates that the blood be poured out and not consumed.  This ritual is a symbolic recognition that all life is sacred—all life, even the life of animals that men kill for sake of sustenance.  Actually the paradigm of man’s relationship to his environment is expressed in the task assigned to Adam in the Garden of Eden before the Fall: “He placed him in the Garden of Eden to till it and to guard it” Genesis 2:15.  What is the meaning of the Hebrew phrase in the opening chapter of Genesis, “and subdue it”?  The truth is that the passage in Genesis was never used to establish a principle of aggressive action by man vis-à-vis the environment. GORLAW 113-4