Hallelujah Diet

If you are looking for a Bible-based diet, consider the Hallelujah diet by founder George Malkmus.

About Reverend Malkmus

Reverend Malkmus appears frequently on television, including the 700 Club, Trinity Broadcasting, CBS, NBC, ABC Nightline, The Food Network, and numerous times on Fox News. He also does almost weekly remote radio interviews on radio stations around the world.

Books he has authored include: Why Christians Get Sick, God's Way to Ultimate Health; Message of Hope and Healing, and his most recent book The Hallelujah Diet, along with numerous CD's and DVD's. His first book, Why Christians Get Sick has passed the million copies in print mark. You can visit his website at www.hacres.com or contact him by email at george@hacres.com

How did the Halleluiah Diet come into existence? What is the focus?

In 1976, while pastoring a church in upstate New York, I was told I had colon cancer. Just prior to this, my mother had died following her battle with colon cancer. Mom had gone the medical route, and at the time of her death, I felt that it was the treatments she had received from the doctors, rather than the cancer, that had caused her death. Not wanting to go the medical route because of mother's experience at the hands of the medical community, I turned to an evangelist in Texas by the name of Lester Roloff, who encouraged me to change my diet from the Standard American meat-based, sugar dessert, cooked food diet, to the Genesis 1:29 diet of the Bible consisting of raw fruits and vegetables. He also encouraged me to drink lots of freshly extracted vegetable juice.

I made the diet change overnight, and within one year my cancer was gone. That experience led me to a study of the Bible to see what the Bible had to say about diet, health, lifestyle, etc. I learned that the Bible was not merely a spiritual book, but that it also contained the answers to many other issues in life.

That healing experience and biblical research led me to start Hallelujah Acres in 1992. My wife Rhonda, who had been healed of debilitating arthritis and lost 85 pounds on the same diet that brought healing to me, was at my side. We started Hallelujah Acres for the purpose of educating the Christian community, as well as anyone else who would listen, that our diets are creating most of our physical problems, and that a changed diet could correct almost any physical problem, or prevent them from ever happening in the first place.

In the past 16-years, Hallelujah Acres has grown from just the two of us to an estimated two million plus people around the world who are following the Hallelujah diet that we teach, and tens-of-thousands have written to tell us that they have recovered from over 170 different physical problems after making the same diet change that resulted in Rhonda and my healings.

How long before you felt or saw improvement?

It was almost immediate. Within weeks I was feeling better, and within a year, my baseball-sized tumor had vanished. That was many years ago, and today, 32-years later, at 74 years of age, I feel and have the energy and physical and mental abilities of a teenager.

Is the Halleluiah Diet considered a raw food diet? And why shouldn't people eat cooked food?

The Hallelujah Diet is an 85% raw and 15% cooked pure vegan (plant-sourced) diet. It contains no animal foods of any kind. Animal source foods are the cause of most of our physical problems. The Hallelujah Diet eliminates all refined sugar, an immune system suppressant that knocks out the very system that God gave us to protect us from germs, viruses, and bacteria. We also eliminate all refined flours, table salt, trans fats, and caffeine.

All animal creations in the wild eat their food raw. Man was designed by God to eat his food raw also. The Genesis 1:29 diet that God gave Adam and Eve was 100% raw. The physical body we each possess is a living organism, designed by God to be nourished with raw food. All cooked food is dead food, and dead food cannot properly nourish the living cells that comprise our living organism. We have found that most people are addicted to cooked food, and so we allow 15% of our diet to consist of cooked vegetables - baked sweet potatoes, whole grain, whole grain pastas, steamed vegetables, and beans. This cooked food makes the diet more doable for most, and we still get the same results.

Raw vegetable juices are the single most important ingredient in The Hallelujah Diet, as it allows nutrients to reach cellular level without going through the digestive process.

What helps people stay motivated? Do people have to count calories or carbs?

There is no counting of calories or anything else on The Hallelujah Diet, and as far as motivation is concerned, usually after anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, a person starts to feel better. The first thing most people notice is an increase in energy. Then if they are overweight, the pounds usually just start dropping off. (One lady on our diet lost 185 pounds in just 15-months on our diet.) Next usually comes the disappearance, one by one, of whatever physical problems that person may have been experiencing before making the diet change. (One man reported a 60 pound weight loss and the disappearance of 28 different physical problems in just 6-months.) And then comes the mental clarity. Many people are experiencing a mental fog today because of their diet and their failure to adequately exercise their body. Exercise is a vital part of our Hallelujah program.

What are the basics of the Halleluiah Diet? Give us an example of a typical day.

For adults, breakfast consists of a dehydrated barley powder called Barley Max or a glass of vegetable juice. Lunch is either a nice vegetable salad or raw fruit. Supper is a large vegetable salad, followed by some cooked vegetables. The goal is to maintain an approximately 85% raw to 15% cooked ratio. Vegetable juices are consumed in mid-morning in place of the coffee and donut and mid-afternoon in place of the candy bar. They can also be consumed more frequently if desired.

Juicing seems to be an important part of the Halleluiah Diet. Do people get enough fiber if they drink juice?

Juices are the single most important part of The Hallelujah Diet. When we eat a raw fruit, vegetable, seed, or nut, and send it through the digestive tract, we lose at least 65% of the nutrients in processing. When we remove the fiber, and drink just the juice, because there is no fiber, it does not have to go through the digestive processing. The juices enter the body almost intravenously, and within minutes are building the cells that comprise our immune system and essential organs of the body, and producing energy. The percentage of nutrients that reach cellular level when we juice is in excess of 92%, rather than less than 35% when we eat the whole food. But these juices must be freshly made and raw. Juices that come in a container of any kind have been cooked in order to kill the enzymes, which, if not killed, would cause spoilage.

The body does need fiber, and there is no fiber in the raw vegetable juices, but The Hallelujah Diet provides far more fiber than any other diet out there in the rest of the foods consumed. Few people realize that there is no fiber to be found in anything of animal origin, there is no fiber in refined flours, sugar, etc. The average person on the Standard American Diet is consuming mostly a fiberless diet. That is why so many people suffer with constipation problems. On the high fiber Hallelujah Diet, most constipation problems soon disappear.

Do you recommend supplements?

I recommend all people, whether on The Hallelujah Diet or not, take a sublingual B12 supplement. Consuming animal source foods do not guarantee adequate B12. Omega 3 is missing from almost every diet consumed today and on The Hallelujah Diet we obtain it in the form of flax oil or ground flax seed. We find fish oils, another source of Omega 3, are often rancid. Iodine is lacking in most diets today, and thus we recommend supplementation. Thyroid problems, caused by a lack of iodine are high today. And the final recommendation, if a person lives in a northern clime, especially in the wintertime where they receive very little sun upon their body, vitamin D supplementation. (These supplements are available from Hallelujah Acres.)

Socially our society tends to focus on food as a reason to get together. How would you recommend a person navigate the social eating scene and stay on their diet?

Rhonda and I have never had a problem here. If we are invited to someone's home, we just tell them that we are on a special diet for our "health", and thus we cannot eat anything of animal origin or foods containing refined sugar. Most people will respect that and prepare a potato, grain, pasta, or other vegetable dishes. Sometimes if a person doesn't know what to serve, we will tell them that we will bring a nice salad to place on the table with the foods they have prepared. That way we have something that we know we can eat that fits our diet.

When dining out, that is usually very easy. Steak Houses usually have a nice salad bar and a baked potato available. In a regular restaurant, the chef, if there is nothing available on the menu, will usually prepare a nice vegan dish special for you, and often even come to the table to see how you liked what he prepared.