Holy Approach to Healthy Diet?

April 13 -- In the age of fad diet one-up-manship, The Maker's Diet puts forth what may be the boldest claim thus far — this weight-loss plan, claims author Jordan Rubin, was cooked up in God's own kitchen.

Rubin's new book, already in the top ten of the New York Times bestseller list for hardcover advice, maintains his approach reflects the very same lifestyle God instructed the Israelites to follow during Old Testament days.

Rubin's 40-day diet from on high takes a holistic approach to living well, putting forward as the keys to weight loss and improved physical, spiritual, and mental health a combination of Kosher eating, carbohydrate restriction, and prayer and meditation.

"Our children are obese. We need a change and the change needs to go back 4,000 years," Rubin told Diane Sawyer on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America. "The principles for food are to eat what God created for food and eat it in the form he created it in."

'Blend of Alternative Medicine, Religious Propaganda'

The diet has three phases. The first is most restrictive, forbidding carbohydrates and even encouraging one half-day fast each week. Meats are encouraged, but not shellfish or pork in accordance with Biblical times.

Phase two incorporates more fruits and dairy products. Phase three is basically the maintenance of a healthy, well-balanced diet with fewer rules to follow.

Along the way, Rubin encourages prayer and spiritual exploration, although his Web site (www.makersdiet.com) gives prospective followers little detail on how to pray or what to pray for.

Experts say much of Rubins's advice is what the public health community has been recommending for years, only repackaged with a spiritual wrapping.

"It is a blend of alternative medicine theory, religion, religious propaganda, and the very reasonable notion that taking good care of oneself leads to better health," says Dr. David Katz, director of Yale Prevention Research Center at Yale University in New Haven, Conn. "It is more good than bad, but not perfect, likely overemphasizing meat."