For those of you not familiar with Joel Rubin's The Maker's Diet it's a Creationist lifestyle that parallels the Primal/Paleo lifestyle (they both end up at similar ending points but are based on different premises). I've talked about it but never actually read his book (I think I skimmed it at one point). I'm still not through the whole thing-I read a chapter yesterday filled with terms I hadn't heard before and came out of it knowing only that phytates are bad. The rest of it went over my head.
The book was written to illustrate Rubin's fight with Crohn's, which he very nearly died from and now has no symptoms of. He tried every diet out there, visited numerous legitimate doctors and also tried numerous quack ones. No one could permanently help him. Once he came across this Biblically-based one he jumped into it feet first and had an amazing transformation. He became convinced that many of our illnesses stem from our modern diet-something which many people nowadays are becoming convinced of, Christian or not. He wrote the book and started a company (blah, forgot the name and the book is in my kitchen and I'm not in my kitchen ...) in order to help people who had issues that weren't being fully treated by modern medical practices (he does emphasize that the medical world is very necessary, especially emergency care, but that adequate preventative care is almost non-existent).
What I find fascinating is the plan's basis on Scripture. Not just Genesis-there is a diet out there called based on that book but I found it unlivable-but the entirety of the Old Testament. The emphasis is on the foods God made for us: vegetables, fruit, dairy from cows or goats, seeds, legumes, fermented stuff, and kosher meats. Rubin points out that the ancient Israelites were spared from many of the diseases that plagued people groups around them (unless they were actively ignoring God, which did happen frequently) due to the advanced hygiene instructions (for the time, and they even apply to modern times) that God had given them. He goes into quite a bit of detail, delving into different academic realms to illustrate his point (i.e. anthropology and archaeology). That part of the book I totally understood.
One thing that both Damm and I won't be giving up, and which Rubin proposes one should, is caffeine. I drink two cups daily and then switch to decaf. It's not that I couldn't live without caffeine-I could, and have-but that it's part of my morning ritual. Damm simply isn't going to give up caffeine. Another thing which he cautions against is tattoos, but his approach is different from any I've heard before. He cautions against them because of possible blood infections (which definitely can happen if you don't use a reputable and responsible artist) and possible nerve damage of tattooed skin. It's too late for me, and his advice probably wouldn't have stopped me anyway, but it's very interesting.
So I'm excited. I love Mark Sisson's blog and will continue to read it (and other Primal/Paleo sites), but I simply cannot agree with his starting point (which is basically that humans evolved from a non-human state). Rubin's stance is that we were wonderfully created with loving detail by God, as He said in His word, and that I agree with (not trying to preach here, but it is what I believe, and I would be remiss if I did not write about it).
The book was written to illustrate Rubin's fight with Crohn's, which he very nearly died from and now has no symptoms of. He tried every diet out there, visited numerous legitimate doctors and also tried numerous quack ones. No one could permanently help him. Once he came across this Biblically-based one he jumped into it feet first and had an amazing transformation. He became convinced that many of our illnesses stem from our modern diet-something which many people nowadays are becoming convinced of, Christian or not. He wrote the book and started a company (blah, forgot the name and the book is in my kitchen and I'm not in my kitchen ...) in order to help people who had issues that weren't being fully treated by modern medical practices (he does emphasize that the medical world is very necessary, especially emergency care, but that adequate preventative care is almost non-existent).
What I find fascinating is the plan's basis on Scripture. Not just Genesis-there is a diet out there called based on that book but I found it unlivable-but the entirety of the Old Testament. The emphasis is on the foods God made for us: vegetables, fruit, dairy from cows or goats, seeds, legumes, fermented stuff, and kosher meats. Rubin points out that the ancient Israelites were spared from many of the diseases that plagued people groups around them (unless they were actively ignoring God, which did happen frequently) due to the advanced hygiene instructions (for the time, and they even apply to modern times) that God had given them. He goes into quite a bit of detail, delving into different academic realms to illustrate his point (i.e. anthropology and archaeology). That part of the book I totally understood.
One thing that both Damm and I won't be giving up, and which Rubin proposes one should, is caffeine. I drink two cups daily and then switch to decaf. It's not that I couldn't live without caffeine-I could, and have-but that it's part of my morning ritual. Damm simply isn't going to give up caffeine. Another thing which he cautions against is tattoos, but his approach is different from any I've heard before. He cautions against them because of possible blood infections (which definitely can happen if you don't use a reputable and responsible artist) and possible nerve damage of tattooed skin. It's too late for me, and his advice probably wouldn't have stopped me anyway, but it's very interesting.
So I'm excited. I love Mark Sisson's blog and will continue to read it (and other Primal/Paleo sites), but I simply cannot agree with his starting point (which is basically that humans evolved from a non-human state). Rubin's stance is that we were wonderfully created with loving detail by God, as He said in His word, and that I agree with (not trying to preach here, but it is what I believe, and I would be remiss if I did not write about it).
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