The main content
Don’t mess with my food!
Soon after I read the book by Dr. West, Dianne sent me another box of “stuff”. I did not pay too much attention to the contents once I saw the subject matter, until a friend from church, Katie, talked about her and her husband going on the Hallelujah Diet. I looked in that box from Dianne and pulled out a video, cassettes, and a book entitled God’s Way To Ultimate Health, all by Dr. George H. Malkmus, the man Katie had mentioned when talking about the change they were making.
Katie’s husband borrowed the cassette tapes, which I gave away, never listening to them myself. I watched the video and had a hard time with it. I would never have paid attention to George Malkmus if I had not first read the book by Dr. West. But that is just me. We all receive better from some sources than we do others. Beside that, I “hear” better by reading than by listening with my ears, so the book God’s Way To Ultimate Health, was more my cup of tea.
Katie and I reviewed a page in God’s Way which listed in three columns the Ideal Diet, the Transitional Diet and Foods to be Avoided. I informed Katie at the beginning that I could eat the transitional diet, except I would continue to eat meat. “NO WAY”, I told her not very nicely, “will I ever NOT eat meat.” I was adamant about the fact I would always eat meat.
In spite of my initial attitude, I learned a lot from George Malkmus and incorporated enough change in my life to render me oddball status. Like I needed something else to make me stand out in the crowd!
The white stuff
Maybe the reason I did not care for George Malkmus and his video is because he came into my living room and attacked my white stuff. He had a list of five major white ingredients which were present in almost everything I ate:
- Meat. Meat? Yes, meat because it contained white fat... lard! Oh brother!
- Dairy.
- Salt.
- Sugar.
- White Flour.
Gee whiz! No way. If I listen to this guy... gone would be not only my steak, but also such things as lasagna with all that wonderful cheese, and my homemade cream puffs with Bavarian cream and chiffon pies, homemade French and Italian breads... all the wonderful things I made from scratch.
I did not like that man.
The juice extractor & green stuff
Katie was singing the praises of drinking a green barley product and juicing carrots, another thing Malkmus insisted we need to do. We are not talking about grinding up carrots in a blender, but rather investing in a juice extractor which separates the juice from the pulp. I was skeptical, but since I worked for Sunbeam Products at the time and was able to get a refurbished juicer for under $20, I tried juicing every once in a while. Maybe 4 or 5 times a week. Carrots alone were way too sweet—something that surprised me—so I added celery and Granny Smith apples to cut the sweetness.
The powdered green drinks was too nasty and too pricey for me. I looked for something that did not have kelp or a filler in it, and found Just Barley. Like its name says, it is just barley. Pure. I could not handle mixing it with water or juice, so first thing upon rising in the morning, before I was awake enough to baulk, I dipped my spoon into the jar of Just Barley, made sure I didn’t inhale, and dumped the barley into my mouth to dissolve. Then I chased it with a bit of water.
Drinking fresh juices and eating the barley powder began to remove toxins from my body and my weight began to drop. Be aware of this, if you work on removing toxins from your body, whether you realize you are doing it or not (I didn’t), you lose weight. More on that later.
Meat bites the dust
Meanwhile, I was eating less and less meat. Not on purpose! I threw the barley into my mouth first thing in the morning; I juiced a few carrots, celery or apple before work; and I ate like ten pounds of fruit by the time supper came around. Okay, I exaggerate on the 10 pounds of fruit. Maybe. I found a letter I wrote to a friend on May 27, 1997, and in it I list a typical days food intake. Check it out.
Food intake on a typical day in the spring of 1997.
- Before Work
- Just Barley, juice of a grapefruit, juice of carrots and/or beets and various green vegetables
- Before Lunch
- Apple, pear, nectarine, peach, banana, 5 dates
- Lunch
- All raw vegetables: green pepper, green beans (yes, raw), celery, cabbage,
- After Lunch
- Cantaloupe, grapes
- Supper
- Large green salad with 1 avocado and 2 tomatoes; Steamed vegetables: corn on the cob, broccoli, sweet potato, slice of whole wheat bread
Consider what I ate five months earlier on December 22, 1996—a T-bone steak, french fries, little bitty green salad and chocolate cake with chocolate whipped cream icing. A big contrast between my diet of December 22, 1996 and May 22, 1997.
Where is the meat??
The meat fell by the wayside! It just dropped off the menu. That was not my plan, I got taken by surprise. Little by little I lost my desire for each type of meat I consumed until finally if I ate it, I got nauseated. Yuck.
In that letter to my friend, I made this statement: “I am not a vegetarian... I just happen to eat like one.” I told you I would not admit it. No way was I going to be a vegetarian even if I looked like one or smelled like one, I wasn’t one. That would be too weird for me to handle.
Lets take another peek into that letter. “It took about 6 months of going through transition to be where I am now. I ended up here by default... as I had no intention of eating like this and was in fact very insistent that I never would. However, every time I made a change toward this end... I felt better. I have never felt so good.”
Secretaries Day 1997
The letter above was written at the end May, but it was a different story in April when I had an incident that spurred me on to change. It started on Secretaries Day in 1997, when my boss and his wife treated me to lunch. I decided I was going to treat myself to a beef au jus sandwich on a white bread roll and ranch fries. I ate the whole thing with no problems. No runny nose, no wheezing, everything was just fine! I could eat meat if I wanted to, and I did!
The weapon of anger
The next day I went for an eye check up around lunch time and had to wait an excessive amount of time, yet again, to see the doctor. I chose that time because I was told by the receptionist that the doctor was more apt to be on time and I would not have to wait around the normal two hours past the appointment to see him. I had to punch a time clock, and needed to go back to work. I got irate, went to the receptionist to inform her I was leaving and would charge the doctor for my time.
My boss was in the parking lot when I got back to work, and patiently listened to my ranting and raving to him about the gross inconsideration of the medical profession not deeming our time is about money too. I do not need to get on this soap box because I will get trapped blood proteins like I did that day.
Have you ever heard the expression, “your sin will find you out”? Secretaries Day and the anger over the doctor appointment had their way with me. The S.A.D. food and the nasty anger worked together at the cellular level, and I ended up susceptible to catching the virus everyone around me was getting. First symptoms showed up about an hour or two after I got to work the morning after the day of the doctor appointment.
My body baulks at meds
As was my custom at first signs of a cold, I dug out the bottle of antibiotics I kept on hand for times such as this. My plan was to keep on working through the day, but within an hour or so I felt like I was dying. I could not understand how I could feel so awful so quickly. I went home and to bed.
Every time I took aspirin my already high temperature would rise higher. I called the doctor and his nurse told me to take Tylenol instead. The same thing happened. My fever would also increase when I took the antibiotic. As I lay across my bed I asked the Lord what in the world was going on. I could not remember when I had felt as badly as I did. As I lay there something I read in God’s Way To Ultimate Health crossed my mind. George Malkmus talked about how the body would come to a point when it would reject drugs (medications) of all kind, even herbs.
Talk about a light bulb going off! I immediately stopped the aspirin, Tylenol and antibiotics and have not put any of them in my body since that day in 1997. I continued to drink a lot of water and fresh vegetable juices. The next evening my temperature suddenly went way up. Sweat poured out of me for an hour. And then just as quickly, while on the phone with Katie, my temperature dropped to a perfect 97.9o—my normal temperature. The sputum I coughed up was yellow one hour and perfectly clear the next. It was the first time I got well from a bronchial cold without a full round of antibiotics.
Even with one foot still in the “all American way”, my body embraced the changes I had made enough to reject toxic materials—antibiotics and pain killers. I was amazed.
The water distiller
After reading about the horrors of tap water I began to purchase distilled water from the grocery store. I sat looking at several jugs of distilled water down by my feet, and felt very lonely. That was when I really felt like I had become an alien from another planet. I dreaded the thought of drinking water out of a jug the rest of my life. “Lord,” I whined, “what has happened to me?”
In 1997 people did not walk around with bottles of water in their hand, at least not in Mississippi. I carried my water to work in jars and walked around with pint or quart size sports bottles filled with the stuff. Lugging jugs of water from the store got old real fast, so as soon as I could I purchased a water distiller so I could make my own. I fit right in today. I buy a bottle of water, usually dump it because it tends to taste nasty, and then fill it up with my now doctored distilled water. Viola! I fit in with the rest of the world.
Since tap water was not good for me, I figured neither was it good for my Yorkshire terrier, Eppi. Eppi’s skin problems were eliminated when she changed to distilled water.
The weight loss
When I started off on this path I weighed in at 102 pounds. That is a bit heavy for my bone structure. By May I weighed 82 pounds. Toxins live in fat so when I lost the toxins, I lost what fat was on my body. I had not weighed 85 pounds since I was in my 20s. I was a little concerned once I went below 85 pounds so I wrote Hallelujah Acres for some advice.
Although I was not following the Hallelujah Diet exactly, I had incorporated enough of it to get results. I was eating 75% to 90% raw food each day. A Hallelujah Acres representative suggested I add more cooked foods into my diet, more whole grains and good fats like extra virgin olive oil, avocados and almonds. I did as suggested, and I stopped losing weight. Now, when I gain too much weight, I simply stop eating grains and bread, and sometimes eat only raw food for a few days.
Hallelujah Acres now has their own green drink called Barley Max. I recommend both Just Barley and Barley Max. Mrs. Malkmus, Rhonda, has a good recipe book loaded with information entitled Recipes for Life from God’s Garden.