Genesis 1:29

"To you shall they be for food and for all of the animals of the earth:" The verse equated them with the beasts and the animals concerning food, and [so] did not permit Adam and his wife to kill a creature and eat meat. Rather, only all green herbs would they all eat together. And when the sons of Noach arrived (after the flood), He permitted meat to them, as it is stated (below, Genesis 9:3), "every crawling thing, which is alive, etc. like the green herb" which I permitted to Adam, "have I given you everything."

And the Lord said, Behold, I have given you every herb whose seed seedeth upon the face of all the earth, and every unfruitful tree for the need of building and for burning; and the tree in which is fruit seeding after its kind, to you it shall be for food.

And G-d said, “Behold, I have give to you” – He permitted humans and to all which have a living soul [i.e., animals] to eat all grasses; all fruit is permitted to humans, and grasses to all beasts and creeping things. To this point, meat has not been permitted [and will not be] until after the flood.

BEHOLD, I HAVE GIVEN YOU EVERY HERB YIELDING SEED. He did not permit Adam and his wife to kill any creature and eat its meat, but all alike were to eat herbs. But when the era of “the sons of Noah” came, He permitted them to eat meat, as it is said, Every moving thing that liveth shall be for food for you; as the green herb have I given you all; even as the green herb that I permitted to the first man, so do I permit you everything. Thus is the language of Rashi. And so did the Rabbi explain it in Tractate Sanhedrin: “And to every beast of the earth — to you and to the beasts I have given the herbs and the fruits of the trees, and every green herb for food.”
But if so, then we must explain the expression, every green herb for food, to mean “and every green herb.” and concludes with every green herb for food, are to be understood as one command since both man and beast were permitted the same food. In that case, Verse 30 should read: “and every green herb,” that is, in addition to every herb yielding seed… and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed mentioned in Verse 29, they could also eat every green herb. But this is not so. Rather, He gave to man and his wife every herb yielding seed and all fruit of the trees [as mentioned in Verse 29], and to the beasts of the earth and the fowl of the heaven He gave all green herb [as mentioned in Verse 30] but neither the fruit of the tree nor the seeds. The food of all of them was thus not the same. However, meat was not permitted to them until the time of the “sons of Noah,” as is the opinion of our Rabbis. And this is the plain meaning of the verse.
The reason for this [prohibition of eating meat] was that creatures possessing a moving soul have a certain superiority as regards their soul, resembling in a way those who possess the rational soul: they have the power of choice affecting their welfare and their food, and they flee from pain and death. And Scripture says: Who knoweth the spirit of man whether it goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast whether it goes downward to the earth?
But when they sinned, and all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth, and it was decreed that they die in the flood, and for the sake of Noah He saved some of them to preserve the species, He gave the sons of Noah permission to slaughter and eat them since their existence was for his sake. sake,” a reference to all …

הנה נתתי לכם, “I am now giving you.” This is an example of a past construction really meaning the present tense. We find examples of this in Genesis 14,22 when Avraham says הרימותי ידי, literally “I have raised my hand,” but meaning: “I am raising my hand, swearing an oath.. We find another example of this in Genesis 23,13 where Avraham refers to the payment to Efron for the cave of Machpelah, saying נתתי כסף השדה, literally “I have given the money for the field.” This could not be a past tense, as he had not known the price charged until this very moment.

הנה נתתי לכם, as food to be consumed by man.

ויאמר אלוקים הנה נתתי לכם, the words נתתי לכם are similar to Genesis 23,13 נתתי כסף השדה, “I had given the money for the field.” Alternately, it could be G’d saying that as soon as He had created them He had assigned these plants as food for man who had not yet been created. This would justify the distant past mode of the word נתתי. “I had given.” The advanced kinds of plants had been assigned as food for man, the fruit of the trees, etc., whereas the more primitive plants, herbs and grass, had been assigned as food for the animals.

זורע זרע, generating seed; the meaning is similar to the expression מזריע זרע in verse 11

לכם יהיה לאכלה, only the ones mentioned in this verse. Permission to eat meat would be granted only after the deluge, and we are not sure of the reason for this. Perhaps the reason is that G’d had already foreseen that during the generation of the deluge Noach would be the one who would be directly instrumental in saving the animals, and permission to eat meat became part of Noach’s reward for his labour feeding all the animals in the ark for a full year. Seeing that G’d does not withhold reward from any creature, He would certainly not withhold it from human beings when warranted. We have a parallel example of Nevuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, being rewarded by G’d for a good deed (Ezekiel 29,18) as a result of which G’d told the prophet that He would reward him by making him victorious over the leading military might in his day, over Egypt.