“Rev. Malkmus, I appreciate your wealth of knowledge and practical experiences and I can understand why cooked food is helpful, even necessary, but turning to the Bible, I can’t understand why the diet of Adam and Eve wouldn’t be sufficient today. If the Bible can answer all life questions, please tell me where does it reference vegan cooked food as being healthier than the original Garden of Eden diet? This spiritual question is important for me because I too easily fall prey to the ideologies of medicine and human-based research and this becomes a spiritual concern. Your input is very much valued and appreciated.” Heidi H., MS, RN
EDITOR RESPONDS: Hi, Heidi - Good question. And in answer to your question, I agree with you. Nowhere does the Bible “reference vegan cooked foods as being healthier than the original Garden of Eden diet.” However, even though the Bible does not advocate it, we have found that by adding a small percentage of cooked food to the raw Genesis 1:29 diet, we can obtain superior healing and maintenance of the body. When God created Adam and placed him in a garden and gave him the Genesis 1:29 diet of 100% raw, plant-sourced foods, there was no degeneration in his physical body nor were there any nutritional deficiencies in the soil. Since then, man’s body has experienced some serious deterioration, and the nutrients contained in the soil, available to the plants growing in that soil, have decreased significantly. If we still had bodies free of disease and toxins as Adam had, and the soil was of the nutrient value it had in the Garden of Eden, we would no doubt be able to sustain strong and healthy bodies on a 100% raw, plant-based diet. Because so many changes have occurred over the past 6,000 years in both nutrient density of the soil and the physical body, we have to make some slight adjustments to make the diet work optimally in today’s world. Below are some of the results of my personally being on a100% raw, plant-based diet for a full year plus noting the experiences of tens of thousands of others who have shared their experiences on an all raw diet with me.
- Many people find it very difficult to obtain enough calories from a raw, plant-based diet to meet the metabolic needs of their bodies. If we do not consume enough calories, too much weight is often lost too quickly and energy can be lacking.
- When enough calories are not consumed to meet metabolic needs, protein needs are difficult to meet. The 15% cooked foods found in The Hallelujah Diet make it easy to meet both the caloric and protein needs without having to consume huge quantities of food.
- A glass of raw vegetable juice contains approximately 100 calories, while a serving of raw BarleyMax contains approximately six calories. One cup of chopped, raw, romaine lettuce provides eight calories, while a half-cup of broccoli provides 12 calories. Now note this: half a cup of cooked broccoli contains 26 calories, while a half cup of cooked brown rice contains 108 calories and half cup of cooked navy beans contains 129 calories. These examples show the value of consuming 15% of our food in cooked in order to meet caloric needs.
- Quite often, after adopting a raw diet, a person will experience low energy as the body goes too rapidly through detox. This detox may manifest in fatigue, headaches, diarrhea, pimple outbreaks, and more as the body throws off toxins too rapidly. The 15% cooked portion will prevent most of these symptoms because it slows down the release of the toxins. These toxins will still come out, but because of the cooked portion, they will come out more gently and over a more extended period of time.
- The 15% cooked portion also helps increase energy, keeps people from losing weight too rapidly, helps keep people from feeling the cold in the wintertime, and helps to stop the desire to cheat.
- There is a trade-off with cooked foods. Certain phytochemicals (such as lycopene and carotenoids) are activated by the cooking process, while cooking destroys a percentage of other nutrients such as vitamin c, along with all enzymes. Also, some proteins and starches are more readily available in cooked foods. The Hallelujah Diet ration of 85% raw to 15% cooked provides the best of both worlds.
- In his book Eat to Live, Dr. Fuhrman encourages a large quantity of raw, plant-source foods but he does not encourage that they all be consumed in their raw form. In fact, he believes that eating all raw is a disadvantage: “To exclude all steamed vegetables and vegetable soups from your diet narrows the nutrient diversity of your diet and has a tendency to reduce the percentage of calories from vegetables, in favor of nuts and fruits, which are lower in nutrients per calories. Unfortunately, sloppy science prevails in the raw-food movement.
