In the introduction of his book God’s Way to Ultimate Health Malkmus addresses his critics: “If you find something in the text of this book a little hard to swallow, then start paying closer attention to the testimonials of people who have actually put these teachings to practice. These are real people with real testimonials. Again, the bottom line is results.”[i]
Personal testimonies are the foundation of the ministry of Hallelujah Acres. Testimonies are displayed on their website, books, newsletter and most everywhere the Hallelujah Diet is promoted. It is evident from the words of Malkmus that results are all that matter. Malkmus uses this pragmatic justification to deflect criticism of the Hallelujah Diet and his novel biblical interpretation.
Some of his claims seem astounding. For instance, he states that when animal fat is removed from ones diet “they reduce their chances of ever having a heart attack or stroke by over 96 percent” [emphasis in original].[ii] His claims about how to avoid cancer are equally as dogmatic. “If a person doesn’t smoke or eat animal products or consume sugar, their chances of ever developing cancer are practically nil.”[iii]
Malkmus gives little medical or scientific documentation to support his claims. Rather, he uses dogmatic assertions that certain foods are bad and reinforces these claims by the thousands of testimonies he has received. The lack of hard evidence supporting the benefits of the Hallelujah Diet lead health professionals like Stephen Barrett of Quackwatch[iv] to conclude that the dietary methods of Malkmus are not trustworthy.[v]
It is the strength of Malkmus assertions regarding the effectiveness of the Hallelujah Diet that is most disturbing. These kinds of allegations lead people away from sound medical treatment.
Most Americans should eat more raw fruits and vegetables and less food that is high in fat. Barrett notes, “It is well established that low-fat eating lowers blood cholesterol levels and that high intakes of fruits and vegetables are associated with lower incidence of cardiovascular disease and certain cancers. … For these reasons, the risk of these conditions is lower for users of Hallelujah Diet than it is for the average American diet. However, the difference for most people is probably not great…”[vi]
The results of the Hallelujah Diet in the life of Malkmus have recently been challenged. On Thursday July 12, 2001 he had a stroke.[vii] Malkmus believes the stroke was caused by a hectic schedule and stress in his life.[viii]
Malkmus has strong words concerning the effectiveness of modern drugs. He writes, “People cannot be drugged (poisoned) into health! Drugs create problems, rather than solve them! To regain health, the sick person must cleanse the body of the drugs and toxic substances that have accumulated and then provide the body with the proper building materials and influences that will allow the body to purify, repair and rebuild itself!”[ix]
In the process of regaining his health after the stroke Malkmus chose to ignore such advice. In Health Tip #194 he writes, “I am currently working closely with a medical doctor, taking two low-dosage blood pressure medications, and have seen my blood pressure drop to normal levels.”[x] So it appears that even in the life of Malkmus that at least some problems are solved with medicine.
——————————————————————————–
[i] God’s Way to Ultimate Health, iii.
[ii] Ibid., 48.
[iii] Ibid., 49.
[iv] Quackwatch is a nonprofit corporation whose purpose is to combat health-related frauds, myths, fads, and fallacies. Its primary focus is on quackery-related information that is difficult or impossible to get elsewhere.
[v] http://www.quackwatch.com/11Ind/malkmus.html on-line as of June 14, 2002
[vi] Ibid.
[vii] Health Tip #194: Rev. Malkmus Experiences Mild Stroke
[viii] Ibid.
[ix] Why Christians Get Sick, 43.
[x] Health Tip #194: Rev. Malkmus Experiences Mild Stroke
Below is my review/response of George Malkmus’ Hallelujah Diet and the impact it had on my Father’s life.
_________________________________________
Unfortunately, many who read this book elevate it to near Scripture and see themselves as missionaries. My observation is that many who believe in its teachings are passionate and see any criticism of it as equal to criticizing God Himself.
There are some things you should know about Hallelujah Acres and their marketing practices and communications before accepting their radical diet plan.
The basis of my knowledge is direct. My Father was diagnosed with stage 4 Kidney Cancer in October of 1999. He was given 6 months to 2 years maximum to live with no real hope being offered by the doctors. If you go to Hallelujah Acres Web Site and look under the testimonies you will find Dad’s testimony of his healing and his praise of the Hallelujah Diet under the name Jim Breen and posted in their health tips in August of 2004.
Hallelujah Acres routinely places people’s testimonies as proof of their claims. Within the testimonies themselves they regularly exercise editorial privilege to emphasis all that is positively said of their plan.
Dad was always skeptical about doctors. He believed they often do more harm than good and use their positions to rob their patients.
So, Dad walked out of the hospital following his diagnosis, swearing never again to enter and to combat this disease every way he could without the medical profession. As the medical profession had little to offer, it was an easy and understandable decision for him to make.
Dad latched upon the Hallelujah Diet and exercised religiously, tracking his progress daily.
Over time, he did appear to get better. He dropped 70 lbs, his energy increased and he attributed all of this in large part to his adoption of the Hallelujah Diet.
In fact, he became so passionate about it, that he began telling others about it and strongly advocating this as the solution for any ailment. Doctors were routinely referred to as “Poisoners, Cutters and Burners” and immediately discounted with the diet being held up as paramount to the will of God in anyone’s life for any physical, emotional or mental problem.
Dad attended the Hallelujah Acres location in Shelby NC where he learned more about his new found passion and eventually went on to become an elite “Health Minister” within the organization.
Dad shared his testimony with the leaders at Hallelujah Acres and indicated he would go to a doctor for the purpose of validating his recovery. Nevertheless, they published his testimony in August of 2004 before he did this and allowed by inference Dad’s faith in his healing to be given in the context of the Hallelujah Diet having contributed to that healing. This is typical of what I’ve observed of Hallelujah Acres. They do not maintain any discernible standards of medical confirmation for the testimonies made and there is no practice of routinely updating the cases they do present. They routinely give positive reviews of themselves.
Dad went to a doctor in Mexico (where he had retired) and that doctor, with no blood work, a single MRI scan and a simple exam, declared Dad free of cancer. This was exactly what Dad wanted to hear. He sang even louder the praises of the Hallelujah Diet for a short while.
Here is the rest of Dad’s Story.
Unfortunately, Dad continued to struggle with health issues for the next 2 months and finally relented to see a different doctor in October of 2004. This doctor did the blood work, ran thorough tests with multiple CAT scans and the word came back that the original cancer had spread and was now in the Kidneys, Liver, Lungs, Brain, Prostate, Testicles and likely the bones.
Dad died on Christmas Morning of 2004 after a relatively brief time although it was a very painful death as he continued to maintain his diet would heal him, refused to go to a hospital and resisted to the greatest degree possible any further medical intervention, even to help manage the pain.
The only regret he voiced was, “I told all those people I was healed, and now look at me.”
Dad beat the odds to live 5 years after his diagnoses, and he lived reasonably well. I don’t doubt that several elements worked in his favor to bring about that result, including his adherence to the Hallelujah Diet (which while excessive in my opinion did take a lot of negative elements of the Standard American Diet out of his body), his positive thinking and faith and his passion to be healed.
I sent an e-mail recently to Hallelujah Acres outlining this story and asking them to publish an update on my Father telling of the mistake the doctor made, the testimony given based on bad information and Dad’s subsequent rapid decline and death. In fairness to them, they did publish it, although they edited out his date of death which hid the fact that he had in fact died within 5 months of his testimony being published and they stated that he was in remission initially, which was never credibly established. A final comment in the response seemingly unrelated left the implication that some actions on his part may have been what caused him to come out of “remission.”
This is typical of what I’ve observed from them. The diet is never at fault. I do give them credit however, for publishing the update and addressing the issue.
With regard to this book, I have some serious reservations in several areas.
1. First, I believe it is bad theology to base a diet upon Gen 1:29 and to ignore everything else in the Bible that speaks of diet and nutrition. If a meat diet was the result of sin, then it would make sense that Christ would have been a vegan to adhere to all righteousness. Christ was not a vegan. He in fact partook of the passover feast which was lamb. His miracles involved multiplying fish and bread. Jesus served his disciples broiled fish. Was Jesus serving them poison?
2. Second, I believe it is bad science to claim that the human body is engineered for vegetables only. Our teeth say we are omnivores. Our digestive system says we are omnivores. Malkmus makes many tenuous appeals to science to attempt to prove otherwise, but his positions in this regard are very much in the minority.
3. Many people think Hallelujah Acres is a ministry. It is a for-profit organization and they profit from the sale of juicers, supplements and literature. They have a financial interest in your acceptance of their teaching and seek to translate your acceptance into some big ticket items and then an ongoing regimen of health supplements that can average over $2,000 per year. Small wonder they are slow to publish anything that would jeopardize that cash flow. Keep in mind while you read it, that ultimately they want to sell you something and they will make a profit.
4. There is a strong anti-medical point of view present that by my observation may lead people to believe that they should follow this diet and discontinue medicines and medical practitioners.
5. The positive is routinely emphasized. Retractions or updates of people who have given testimony previously are rare and selective.
6. While I would not go that far as to label this movement a cult, I would say that there are strong elements of it present. When rational thought is suspended in favor of blind faith and the people promoting the message have a financial interest in your behavior, then there is a recipe for abuse.
7. Dr. Malkmus’ testimony of healing from cancer was never verified medically. He has himself recently had instances of a rare stroke condition and is on medication. In fairness, he disclosed it in his newsletter. It is a radical departure from the standards he preached earlier and shows that not everything is solvable by diet alone.
8. A fairly careful review of literature by nutritionists does seem to indicate that there are benefits to gain by this type of diet although most of those benefits are short-term and there are some long-term problems such as Vitamin B-12 deficiency. (Something that Hallelujah Acres acknowledged informationally many years after it was known.) Obviously, a low-calorie diet combined with exercise will lead to weight loss and the body feeling better due to that change. Many Long term Vegans evidence significant problems with vitamin deficiencies, anemia and many vegans in fact “cheat” due to the overwhelming cravings that their body creates to meet these deficiencies. I definitely observed that in my father, despite the fact that he obviously felt guilty on those rare occasions where he gave in. If you observe the testimonies regarding the Hallelujah Diet you will notice that many of them focus on the front-end where the excitement is high, the weight-loss is great and the long-term issues are not yet in effect.
If someone wants to be a vegan, more power to them. There is no question that there are serious issues with what is described as the “Standard American Diet” (SAD) and as a society we are getting fat and a great deal of disease comes from nutritional deprivation, empty calories and overeating.
Where this reviewer takes with this book issue is with the implication that there is a “Christian, Biblical way of eating,” which by implication leads to the conclusion that you are deficient in faith or wisdom if you do not follow Malkmus’ weave of highly debatable Biblical Passages, and selective science. You cannot read the reviews of this book by many wide-eyed adherents and not realize that you are dealing with passions that go beyond what you’d expect at a “weight watchers” group meeting. This is many ways is a willing of something to be true, because those adhering to it want it to be true and maybe have no other hope.
Much of what this program is, in my opinion, is a hook thrown out to desperate people who want to believe that modern medicine is out to get them, that God has a plan for their lunch, and that anyone who questions them is not listening to God. That is what I took issue with more than anything else as I stood by and watched my Dad suffer and die while he placed his faith in this diet to a great extent.
I don’t know that he could have done anything different and done any better. I am grateful for the additional time that he had. I wish he had used all resources, including medical, to track his progress and in the end to manage his pain. I respect it was his choice however just as everyone else must make choices in these areas.
If you buy this book, please hear the story of my father as you read it and keep things in perspective and in balance. Like many things in life, there are some good things it has to say and there is no doubt that a better diet will serve to accomplish a lot in a person’s life. There is no need to take it as far as this book and “ministry” does. Please check other sources and don’t just take it all in without doing some
thought, research and yes … even some prayer.
Rest in Peace Dad.
Bart,
Thanks so much for sharing your dad’s story. I hope it will persuade someone who believes the Hallelujah Diet is their savior – to think again.
I have written further on the Hallelujah Diet, it can be found here:
http://www.midwestoutreach.org/Pdf%20Journals/2002/02fall.pdf
and here:
http://apologetics101.net/free/JAD030.pdf
Thank you for your kind words and for your writings in this area.