The Hallelujah diet by George Malkmus. updated 5/2/2016

This is a raw food, vegan diet with less than 15 percent of what is eaten, being cooked. The founder, Rev Malkmus, 73 years old says he's in perfect health and cured colon cancer with this diet. He also exercises daily. Apparently he still follows a busy schedule of preaching the Bible and his healthy diet.

Malkmus was recently written up on ABC news...

The comments on this article were interesting.

Some used their comment as a pulpit to "prove" how stupid believers in the Bible are. Others held forth what we hear from those selling statin drugs... the deadly cholesterol (which has NEVER been proven deadly if you read the research but the statin drugs to lower cholesterol have many nasty side effects including increasing the risk for cancer).

One website pointed out that vegans have low levels of B12. Some studies have suggested that vegans also have a high incidence of osteoporosis because it is difficult to get the RDA of calcium 1200 mg daily from veggies (for instance, one cup of broccoli yields 25 mg).

One of many questionable suggestions with Rev Malkmus's diet is that he states you don't have to drink a lot of water because a raw food vegan diet yields a lot of water. While this is something we all like to hear, some studies have suggested that water from food does not have the kidney cleansing properties of plain water.

For example, it offers the Hallelujah diet clinic for those suffering with most major ailments. It's not cheap:

Two day workshops are less expensive... $125 a piece.

The Hallelujah diet website offers the opportunity to become a health Minister (training is $300 at their headquarters in Shelby, NC), a cafe and market selling only organic veggies and for those who cannot travel to NC, there is an online store offering books and supplements. And planned in 2008, states the website, are "Hallelujah Communities" which will have residents and resources. These things might suggest that the Hallelujah Acres (and it's owner) may not be non profit especially in the current atmosphere of "diet or die".

The Bible diet is not unique to Mr Malkmus - Rubin also advocates it in his book, OUR MAKER'S DIET.

Rev Malkmus uses himself to "prove" how healthy his diet is but before we take that to the bank we should consider the following:

1. Mr Malkmus exercises regularly and that alone in conjunction with ANY reasonable diet has been suggested to greatly reduce health risks
2. the American diet is so unhealthy that most people who embrace ANY reasonable diet, eliminating chemicals and junk and fast foods, feel immediately better than they did on the American diet.
3. there has been a lot of mention of studies which suggest that strong religious believers tend to be healthier simply due to a greatly lowered stress level and stress has been universally identified as EXTREMELY unhealthy (Dr Mehmet Oz has an entire chapter on its negative effects in "YOU STAYING YOUNG").

One article by Andrew Foote, also a health minister, claims a very bad experience with staying on the Hallelujah diet for a length of time. His baby born when his wife was on the diet, was B12 deficient and had developmental disabilities. He himself, experienced vitamin shortages, fatigue etc.

Foote points out that according to a news article published in 1999, Rev Malkmus had never received an official diagnosis of colon cancer (using tests) but rather got his diagnosis from naturopaths and chiropractors.

The article also states that according to Roloff's website, Roloff who was supposed to be Rev Malkmus' mentor, did NOT disallow meat on his diet.

Whatever the case, Rev Malkmus isn't especially elderly (for example, I know many folks on the American diet with high BMI's who have achieved the age of 73 also) and he has many OTHER factors which have reduced his health risks which are not necessarily associated with his vegan diet or preference for raw foods.

Longevity is a lot of genetics and the luck of the draw (for example not dying in auto accidents).

We are likely better off following the NIH specs for healthy eating at My Fitness Pal rather than any one individual's restrictive diet.