What's So Special About The Hallelujah Diet? (part 2)

In last week's Health Tip we shared three unique features of the Hallelujah Diet:

• Foundation
• Approach
• Cost

As a result of sharing these three unique features, a number of folks wrote to remind me that I had left out the most unique feature of all: Testimonies. After considering their point, I had to agree. Testimonies bring the reality of The Hallelujah Diet to life — and they've been a part of what we do from the beginning. When Rhonda and I opened that little health food store and vegetarian restaurant in Rogersville, Tennessee on February 12, 1992, nobody had ever heard of Hallelujah Acres – and practically no one wanted anything to do with the biblical Health Message we were proclaiming. There were days when no one even entered our restaurant or purchased anything in our store. But in that little 16-seat restaurant where we served carrot juice and vegetarian foods, we began holding a free Saturday Seminar titled "How to Eliminate Sickness." Those few who came and applied what was being taught started getting well from a variety of physical problems. Many of these were prominent local business people. Frank, the local print shop owner, had a diabetic condition and was scheduled to have his foot amputated when he applied what we were teaching. Soon after adopting what we called The Hallelujah Diet, he was off insulin and his blood sugar was normal. Frank was in his mid-60s then — today he is in his 80s, still free of diabetes (and still has both feet). The next prominent business person to go on The Hallelujah Diet was Don, the local undertaker. As a result of a very bad accident, Don had a steel plate in his leg with many screws. He was in great pain at the time he made the diet change. But it didn't take long for his pain to subside. Then there was the local State Farm Insurance agent, Elmer. He had severe acid reflux and was on high doses of medication. Within a few days of adopting The Hallelujah Diet Elmer saw his acid reflux problem disappear and had no more need for antacids. Word of these recoveries started to spread. It wasn’t long before Helena Jones, a reporter for the Greenville Sun newspaper showed up in our store to take some pictures and write an article. The article was a two-page spread including several pictures with the heading “George Malkmus Advocates a Radical Diet.” (You can see this article, now framed and on a wall at Hallelujah Acres headquarters in Shelby, North Carolina.) The article also chronicled Frank's testimony. The story read:

“A Rogersville businessman said he had had diabetes since 1988. His blood sugar ran 150-230; a ‘normal person without diabetes, he says, has a blood sugar count of about 80-120. He took two insulin shots a day. He’s had surgery on his feet, and the doctor was talking about amputation. He said, ‘The doctors told me I’d have to be on insulin the rest of my life and I was dying.’ “Before changing his diet, he related, he was eating ‘a regular doctor’s diet. He was letting me have bacon and eggs, a half cup of orange juice and a little meat with each meal.’ Tired of his poor health and fearful, he went to one of Malkmus’ seminars. His blood sugar at the time was out of control. ‘I couldn’t keep it consistent.’ “He listened at the seminar and ‘was convinced of what it (Malkmus’ raw diet) could do.’ And he also felt it might be his last hope. ‘I decided I didn’t have anything to lose’. He and his wife began taking three tablespoons of barley powder a day and cut out all fat. ‘We also ate lots of vegetables and fruit’. “The results were astounding to him and his doctor. ‘In two days after I started the barley and juices I cut my shot in half. I was checking my sugar three times a day. Each day it was just lower and lower. Finally, within a week and a half I was able to discontinue taking the shots.’ “He now exercises about 20 minutes each morning – riding his stationary bike, lifting weights and ‘a little aerobic stuff.’ His sugar was checked the day before this interview, and it was 82. And did he tell his Kingsport doctor what he had done? ‘Yes,’ he says. And what did the physician say? ‘Not a word,’ the businessman reports. Does the doctor know of Malkmus? ‘Everybody in Rogersville knows about him,’ he says. And I think some of the doctors are going to his store.’”

The article also included the testimony of Don Broom:

“Don Broom, the owner of the Broome Funeral Home in Rogersville, fell on ice on a driveway pavement in 1986. The result, he says, was 26 screws, two metal plates and two bolts in his left leg and the probability, physicians told him, that he’d eventually have arthritis. They also said he’d never be able to run again. “He couldn’t even walk for nine months and had to work around his business in a wheelchair. ‘It was traumatic,’ he recalls. He also suffered from sinus headaches, bursitis in his shoulders, and infections that generally ran from early winter through spring. “Broom was persuaded to go on the diet after his 19-year-old daughter, whom he calls ‘a health nut,’ asked him to just go one time to Hallelujah Acres to see what the program could offer. ‘I didn’t want to go,’ he remembers. But he read Malkmus’ book, ‘Why Christians Get Sick,’ before his first visit. “On Sept. 1, 1992, he went on the diet, and by Sept. 20, the day he visited his parents and brother in Asheville, N.C., he says his joints had stopped hurting. During the visit he sold his parents and ‘grossly overweight brother,’ who was missing several days of work a week because of migraine headaches on the program. “’We were afraid my brother would lose his job because he was out of work so much,’ Broom says. ‘They were giving him steroids, high powered pain killers, all this sort of stuff.’ Broom says his brother’s migraines have stopped since he started the raw foods diet and the barley powder on September 20, and he has lost about 60 pounds.’ “His mother, Broom adds, whom he says has a degeneration of the spine and had a bad limp in her left leg, no longer limps. ‘She is feeling good and going places,’ he says. Broome’s wife and their other daughter, 16, are also on the diet and are enthusiastic about their results. . . . Now, he says, it’s simple. ‘It is amazing how the body will heal itself. God created us not to be sick. When the immune system is not at its peak, the body cannot heal itself.’ . . . . And he really likes his results. ‘I used to take antibiotics 2-3 times a year and had a real sinus problem. .’ He can now raise both hands over his head, a difficulty before the diet, and he can jog two miles at a time on his mini-trampoline. “I used to wake up in the night and hurt. A lot of times I’d get in the bathtub to warm up the metal in the leg. I haven’t had that problem at all and the feeling in my leg has improved.’”

The article also included the testimony of Elmer Couch:

“Elmer Couch, 74, a State Farm agent in Rogersville for 45 years, says he had a ‘bad acid stomach condition for a long time. His problem had plagued him ‘for years.’ The remedy he relied on was medicine prescribed by physicians, which he said cost about $2,000 every six months. “Couch had heard of the raw foods diet Malkmus suggested, and about the barley powder drink. He decided to give it a try since, as he says, ‘I had taken an awful lot of medicine for my stomach for a long time.’ About three and a half months ago he started trying the raw foods diet and the barley powder. “Here’s what he says happened: ‘About the third day all that acid left me. I dropped all my medicine about two weeks later. He drinks barley powder in the morning, eats fruit mid-morning, drinks barley before lunch and then walks over to Hallelujah Acres for lunch. Dinner at home is a salad, steamed veggies and a baked potato. He says he eats no meats, salt, sugar, or dairy products. “He says he is never hungry and has lost about six pounds. A few weeks after this interview, during another conversation, Couch said he broke the diet when he was in a situation where he had to eat foods off the diet and his acid reflux returned. ‘It got OK when I went back on the diet.’”

Nearly 20 Years Later... Back in 1992, in that little store front in Rogersville, Tennessee, Hallelujah Acres was a ma and pa operation. Rhonda (Ma) was in the kitchen preparing the food. George (Pa) was in the dining room serving the food, selling health products, and running the register. Here we are today, nearly 20 years later in a 300-seat facility in Shelby, North Carolina, plus a 60-seat Café, a staff of 50, we're building a Village, and we have trained over 10,000 Health Ministers through the years to help us share our health message. Since that humble beginning in Rogersville, Tennessee, tens-of-thousands of folks from around the world have written to share that after they adopted The Hallelujah Acres Diet and Lifestyle they have recovered for over 170 different physical and psychological problems. I could go on and on sharing testimony after testimony. If you could only see and hear the testimonies I read and hear every day, each of you reading this would be a believer, if you are not already. Read the testimonies for yourself! How are all these testimonies possible? At Hallelujah Acres we teach health from a biblical perspective. We teach how God designed us to be nourished in Genesis 1:29. This teaching may sound strange to people who have been programmed by the world’s system—but multitudes are experiencing in their own bodies that what we teach here at Hallelujah Acres is indeed truth. It does work! In fact, it works so well, that if all the people of the world would adopt this diet we could practically eliminate sickness from the earth. If you are not already on The Hallelujah Diet, may I encourage you to give it a try!