Eating Like Adam and Eve

Sept. 28, 2007— -- The spry, slender 73-year-old man sprints up to the stage, pumps the air with his fist, and shouts out a robust, "Hallelujah!"

The Rev. George Malkmus surveys the crowd of nearly 400 packed into a former college auditorium and finds that people have come from all over the country -- and even from Nigeria -- to hear him preach the Gospel. But it's not his approach to scripture that draws this crowd. It's his diet: "the Hallelujah Diet."

Malkmus, a Gospel minister who takes the Bible literally, said that -- long before South Beach or Jenny Craig -- God laid out his own diet plan in the book of Genesis.

Malkmus pounds the pulpit: "What did God tell man in Genesis 1:29? That your food shall be all of those plants that are in that garden. You will not find anything of animal origin in the garden diet. You will not find Twinkies either!"

The garden he refers to, of course, is the Garden of Eden. Indeed, the Hallelujah Diet answers the question: "What would Adam and Eve eat?"

The program consists almost entirely of raw fruits and vegetables, seeds and nuts.Under the Hallelujah plan, only 15 percent of the vegetables are supposed to be cooked.

Malkmus said he has never wavered from the strict vegan diet since he took it up at age 42 after being told he had colon cancer: "Within a year, my baseball size tumor had totally disappeared as had all of the other physical problems I was experiencing." Malkmus acknowledges that he never had a biopsy, but insists, "I had a tumor that was self-evident. I was bleeding from the rectum."

At his seminar, Malkmus is clearly preaching to the choir. Some of his disciples credit the Hallelujah Diet with clearing up a host of health problems, including acid reflux, arthritis, body odor, diabetes, irritable bowel syndrome and cancer.

Such anecdotal claims are difficult to verify, of course, and Malkmus himself is careful not to promise miracles. "I don't believe the Hallelujah Diet can cure anybody of anything."