Body by God

Nutritional decisions are important not only to you; they are obviously important to God. Right from the start, food has had a huge role in establishing our relationships with Him. Look at Adam and Eve: A bad neighbor convinces Adam and Eve to cheat on their diet, and the next thing you know, instead of eating grapes and frolicking naked in the Garden of Eden, Adam is wolfing down a jelly donut and a cup of coffee in rush-hour traffic at six in the morning, while Eve is feeding the kids a bowl of Froot Loops with milk from a cow before dropping them off at day care.

One bad meal started this whole crazy game. But it should come as no surprise: Throughout history, not only our health but our relationships with God have often been developed and tested through our need to eat.

When Moses marched thousands through the desert, he was continually confronted with challenges. While the absence of air-conditioning and a lack of comfortable sandals were obviously huge obstacles, it was a shortage of food and beverages the Bible chooses to focus on. Because there was no take-out food or convenience stores back then, when hunger and thirst brought Moses to his knees he was forced to turn to God. When he did, his prayers were answered. In fact, it was then God invented the very first free home-delivery service by sending bread down from heaven at no charge—conveniently right to their front tent door—to show how much He blesses and loves those who seek Him. Later, He even supplied a rock water fountain!

Throughout history, the mystery of nutrition has caused most everyone to slip up or suffer. Fortunately, the advantage of suffering is that it usually brings about a desire to seek God. And this is probably why at some point throughout the year, nearly every religion and culture focuses on some sort of eating ritual.

Since the literal beginning of time, the natural temptation of food has been so great, it has been one of the main themes of the Bible and continues to be a part of many stories of today. In this section of your Owner’s Manual, I will unlock the historic food mystery of the ages and show you how to easily and painlessly put this age-old problem of food to rest.

For centuries, there has been a tremendous amount of diet and nutritional information available. However, it obviously has not worked. American people are now more overweight than ever, and nutritionally related diseases are at an all-time high and beginning to spread abroad.

The guidelines for fueling your Body by God that you will read in this part are not about a diet, because it is clear that diets are too hard and painful and thus do not work. Instead, we will focus on the “Un-Diet.”

DIET MYTHS V. UN-DIET TRUTHS

Diet Myth #1: Diet = Deprivation.

Un-Diet Truth: The Un-Diet is not about eating only bland, tasteless foods, restricting portions, or cutting calories. In fact, while the Un-Diet does recommend certain foods, if you follow the “Un-Diet Food Guide” found on pages 82–84, you do not have to change the foods you eat at all.

Diet Myth #2: Eat like an elephant, look like an elephant.

Un-Diet Truth: If you are eating the foods God intended you to eat and/or eating the way He intended you to eat (following the Un-Diet Food Guide), you will never look like an elephant.

Diet Myth #3: If you crave, you cave (once you cheat or go off your diet, it’s over).

Un-Diet Truth: Taking short vacations from proper eating is part of the Un-Diet. Eating a food you crave is actually part of the plan.

Diet Myth #4: You can trick the body into thinness and better health.

Un-Diet Truth: God’s body cannot be tricked; it must be looked on in awe. Diets that restrict foods or use only one kind of food category, such as a protein-only diet, may trick the body into change in the short term. However, they never work in the long term. Eliminating an entire food group cannot be healthy because God would not have placed those foods on the face of the earth in the first place if they were not to be eaten.

The Un-Diet uses a balance of foods including fruits, vegetables, whole grains like oats and basmati rice, as well as protein, all eaten at the right time to create real, lasting health and thinness.

Diet Myth #5: It’s best to get a balance of protein, fats, and carbohydrates at every meal.

Un-Diet Truth: Varying amounts of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats are needed at different times throughout the day. Additionally, the Body by God does not digest protein and carbohydrates the same way so they should not be consumed in large amounts together.

Diet Myth #6: There is a cookie-cutter diet that works for all people or all people with certain backgrounds or body types.

Un-Diet Truth: God made people like snowflakes; no two are exactly alike.

Diet Myth #7: “Low-,” “reduced-,” “-free,” “no-” foods are “health and diet foods,” and food that is good for you is expensive.

Un-Diet Truth: Synthetic, refined, or chemically altered foods that say: “low-fat,” “reduced-cholesterol,” “lactose-free,” “no-sugar,” etc., will never grant long-term health or thinness. Anything man creates for the BBG to eat cannot be considered “health and diet food.” Additionally, these foods are expensive. Food by God is the only health and diet food there is, and overall it costs a lot less.

Improving how you fuel your Body by God shows respect for the body God has given you. This should not produce frustration or make you feel pressured to eat well. It should, however, make you feel inspired to do “better.” God knows you are not perfect and will never be. Life is not a game of perfection.

I have worked with professional and Olympic teams and athletes of all kinds. Whether their sport is golf, basketball, wrestling, tennis, or baseball, one thing they all have in common is that they can make a mistake—in fact, several mistakes—and still win their game or match. An individual or a team can miss shots, experience turnovers, commit errors, or slice a couple of shots into the woods and—despite their mistakes—still become champions.

Improving any habit, particularly your eating habits, is extremely difficult. This commonly leads to making mistakes. But do not let that stop you from getting in the game.

You are not looking for the perfect diet. Rarely does anyone eat perfectly for even one day, never mind a whole week or a whole lifetime! The important part is to get started. Just get in the game because life can only improve if you get off the bench. You are never going to follow a diet without error—and you don’t have to. When you make your mistakes, get back in the game, and remember, you can make several errors and still win. You lose only if you lose hope.

We know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us. (Rom. 5:3–5)

In this world, committing to doing anything right is difficult. No matter what you do, there will always be challenges and natural temptations that pull you away from doing good. I have found that when I am doing something purely for my own sake, it is significantly more difficult to stay committed than if I am doing it for others.

Because a healthier eating program gives you more energy, greater strength, increased mental awareness, and significantly increases the time you will spend here on the planet, what you put in your mouth affects others. When you consider what you are going to put in your mouth (which most people do not consider at all), remember that if you lead a better, longer life, you can do a tremendous amount more for God and the people you love. Pregnant women always say that they are eating for two. I always say that I am eating for three:

When I remind myself of that, I am far more likely to put the right things in my mouth.

In the book of Daniel, the king ordered his chief court official to bring him young men who were without any physical defect, handsome, showed aptitude for every kind of learning, were well-informed, and were qualified to serve in the king’s palace. One of these young men was Daniel.

The king apportioned to these men a daily amount of food and wine from his table. This royal food was unhealthy and made up of things that had been sacrificed to other gods. Despite incredible pressure from the king, temptation from his own body, and the fact that every one around him was eating this way, Daniel chose to be faithful to the Lord and resolved not to defile his body with the royal food.

Daniel asked the king’s chief court official for permission not to eat this food. God, seeing Daniel’s respect for Him and his own body, caused the official to show favor and sympathy for Daniel. So while the official was concerned that he would get in trouble for letting Daniel look worse than the other men, who were still eating the royal food, he was willing to grant Daniel’s request.

Daniel convinced the official to feed him only vegetables and water for ten days and then test him against the other men. At the end of this small research project, Daniel looked healthier and better nourished than any of the other men. As a result, the guard allowed Daniel to stick to God’s nutrition plan instead of the king’s.

Daniel’s courage and obedience, which came through a love for God, brought him many blessings. God blessed Daniel with knowledge, understanding of all kinds of literature, and learning that was ten times greater than that of anyone else in the whole kingdom. Later, God saved Daniel from the evil of men and the mouths of lions. He also gave Daniel the ability to see and interpret visions and dreams that eventually would change the course of history.

In this world, to the faithful go the blessings. Daniel knew he was eating for three. Because he followed God’s nutritional plan, he not only received blessings far beyond what he could have imagined, he also ended up blessing God and everyone else around him.

God is looking to work with you. Eating poorly makes that difficult to do. When you eat poorly it is not that you are cursed, it is just that you are not blessed. However, when eating for three, what you will ultimately find is not painful sacrifice, but pleasures that far exceed any of those foods that might have tempted you.

As it is written in the Bible and as you have experienced in your own life, what you are eating affects not only you, but God and everyone around you. To be blessed like Daniel, anytime you begin to eat, say, “I am eating for three.”

My entire family comes from New York City. It is the birthplace of the jelly donut, the cheesecake, and the knish; and it is where pizza and the “street hot dog” were perfected. As a result of our origin, food always was and still is a major part of my family’s life. That is why when I was growing up, nearly everyone in my family and most of our family’s friends had a weight problem.

So standard was this whole weight issue in my genetic line that at a very young age I was told I, too, would one day be fat. At an age when other kids were being told they would one day become the president of the United States, a famous actor, or that they would discover a cure for cancer, it was being prophesied to me that I soon would have big pants.

Being told that very long belts and the need to shop for clothes in special stores were in my future, I became extremely concerned. The problem was, I wasn’t exactly sure what to do. Eating a lot of whatever tasted best was all I had ever known.

I was raised on the three C’s: Cow products, Chemicals, and empty Calories. My two favorite meals were Fruity Pebbles and pepperoni pizza. Furthermore, if it wasn’t full of sugar and colorings, I wouldn’t drink it.

Looking back, I can see that my eating habits were not doing much for my health. Like most American kids, I spent more time in doctors’ offices than I did on the playground. I had ear problems, allergies, chronic upper-respiratory infections, growing pains, and had several different organs of immunity (tonsils and adenoids) removed. In fact, in every picture I have of my childhood, my nose was running. (A wet nose may mean a dog is well, but not a child.)

If I wasn’t in the doctor’s office, I was in the principal’s office. In today’s American society, they would have had me on a Ritalin IV drip. Luckily, back then they used writing sentences and erasing chalkboards as a form of discipline instead of psychotropic drugs.

Unfortunately, although I was continuously ill, my nose was always running, and I constantly struggled to sit quietly in a classroom, no one ever even considered the possibility that my problems may have been related to all the sugar, dairy products, caffeine, and food coloring coursing through my veins.

My first nutritional insight came from my eighth-grade health teacher. To this day, I can remember hearing him say, “Some people eat to live, and some people live to eat.” I thought, That’s me! That’s my problem! I live to eat!

Before he said that, I didn’t even know food was necessary for survival. I just thought we ate because we liked food. Unfortunately, without the knowledge or resources to change my diet, the way I ate did not change much throughout my youth. As a result, pains, symptoms, as well as a nasty disposition all affected me on a regular basis my entire childhood.

By the grace of God, my internal organs somehow managed to survive long enough to go to college. By then the joint problems, blood-sugar issues, allergies, and colds that had plagued me all my life were worse than ever. My first year, I considered 8:00 A.M. classes cruel and barbaric. In order to survive as a freshman, I had to figure out a way to schedule all my classes in the afternoons.

I chose a college with a good wrestling program in hopes of improving on my injury-hampered high-school career. But my health was so bad, I was not able to compete in wrestling my first year. The back, knee, and shoulder problems I struggled with in high school were continuing to plague me. I spent more time with college trainers and local orthopedists than I ever did in the college practice room.

Frustrated, I decided to ask one of the assistant wrestling coaches if there was anything I could do. He told me that if I was ever going to be a great wrestler, I would have to change what I was eating. My first thought was, What does eating have to do with my health, my joints, and my wrestling? I knew eating affected weight, but how could food affect my shoulders, back, knees, and immune system?

Willing to try anything, I began to work on passing the familiar sugared cereal and dessert lines in the cafeteria and instead stopping at the foreign fruit and salad sections. While Fruity Pebbles, pizza, and water with sugar and coloring continued to be high on my priority list, I eventually started to exchange the three C’s for some better choices.

I gradually began to see changes in my health, my joints, and the look and performance of my body. In my second year of college, I was able to take morning classes, didn’t have one cold all year, and I became an Academic All-American in wrestling.

I became so interested in nutrition that I decided to get a degree in it. As my knowledge of health and nutrition grew, it began to occur to me that eating not only had a tremendous amount to do with why my wrestling suffered, it was also a big part of the reason my relatives were dying young. I realized that gaining control of what I was eating would not only help me win matches, it would help me gain control of my destiny.

Living to eat is something a lot of us are caught up in. In fact, I am not sure I will ever fully recover from the “live to eat” psychology. While many people wake up and consider what they are going to do for the day, I still oftentimes wake up and think less about what I am going to do during the day and more about what I am going to eat during the day. Just as I started doing in college, the trick has been not to give up loving to eat, but to get better at choosing what I eat.

Again, good nutrition does not mean perfect eating. By comprehending even some of the guidelines for fueling your BBG and getting better and better about applying them, you, too, will look better, win more matches, have a much drier nose, and receive many more blessings.

If you continue to look at nutrition the way most people do—“I’m on a diet” or “I’m off a diet”—you’ll never learn. You are bound to a life of yo-yo eating where your weight, your health, and your peace of mind go up and down forever.

The key to the future is to learn from the past as well as the present. The bottom line is, when you first attempt to improve your eating, you are still going to like pizza, candy, and ice cream. To create a way of eating that will cause stable, predictable results, you cannot believe that you “caved because you craved.” Rather than believing you have failed every time you eat something you feel you shouldn’t have, learn from the experience. Then, the next time you are in the same situation, you can look at how you felt in the past when you ate the wrong thing and thus begin to do better in the present.

The other extremely important thing to remember is that any long-term, healthy eating plan includes meals or days that are made up of the things you love. Never say never. Never say to yourself, “That is it. That is the last piece of chocolate I will ever eat.” First of all, you will instantly want it because you can’t have it. Second, as you will see, well-placed vacations from the program are an important part of the Un-Diet. Sometimes you need a break. Like any vacation, these breaks are necessary for mental and emotional health and to enjoy life to its fullest. In that way, a well-placed piece of chocolate every once in a while is actually good for you.

When I used to try dieting, the decision to eat oatmeal for breakfast instead of Sugar Smacks, or tuna and a baked potato for lunch instead of a cheeseburger and fries, was painful. The pain was also cumulative. The longer I dieted, the more powerful the desire to binge was and the longer it would last. Just realize, you are not psychotic if you have gotten up in the middle of the night and eaten a whole bag of cookies or a whole tub of ice cream as a result of the dieting process. I have been there. (I thank God every week for the Un-Diet Vacation Food Program.)

In my family, when we used to say the diet starts Monday, we would gain more weight on Sunday than we would ever lose on the diet.

What has been neat and totally subconscious is that over the years, I have gotten to the point where ninety-nine times out of one hundred, I prefer the oatmeal and the tuna to the junk-food alternatives that do not allow me to look or feel my best. I even prefer the cleaner, fresher, less oily taste of healthy meals now.

What I eventually discovered was that all the permanent pleasures associated with eating well—such as better health, higher energy, more restful sleep, looking your best, increased libido, improved work performance, and a happier frame of mind—usually far outweigh the temporary pleasures of the taste. When this is not the case, I eat something I crave, and then I move on. Sometimes I get off the plan for a few days, but all the pleasurable things about eating well start to go away and I feel sick. Then I look forward to getting back to what are now my new eating habits.

When I first got out of college, I began to work in various clinics and gyms as a nutritionist and weight-loss counselor. My first patient was a woman whom a friend of mine was dating. She was beginning to put on a lot of weight, and she wanted to get it under control. (My friend wanted her to get it under control as well.)

As I had not created the Un-Diet yet, I gave her the standard diet program recommended by the nutritional science world at the time. It consisted of following a point scale. Each carbohydrate, protein, and fat gram was worth a certain number of points, and you were allowed only so many points per meal and per day. The object of this point system was to make sure you got the nutrients you needed while taking in only a certain amount of calories. One obvious problem with this method was that if you ate a cookie, that was it for food for the day.

Despite the fact that she handed in a diet diary every week showing that she was abiding by the system, every time she came in to see me, she had gained weight. At the end of her second week, she had gained eight pounds.

About that time, my friend called me and began to question what I was doing. In fact, he said, “You obviously have no idea what you are doing!”

With the painful reality that his girlfriend was packing on pounds at an alarming rate while under my care, and that the other clients I had started on the program also were gaining weight, I began to wonder if maybe he wasn’t right.

The next day, as I pulled into the weight-loss clinic parking lot, I noticed my friend’s girlfriend had arrived before me. I pulled up right next to her car to park, and as I got out of my car, I couldn’t help but notice that her passenger seat was covered with colored sprinkles. As it turns out, part of her nutritionist appointment included a trip to Dairy Queen (a snack that had not managed to make its way onto the weekly diet diary). I thought to myself, Great job. As a result of your care, she now not only has an eating disorder, she’s a compulsive liar!

My schooling and my own attitudes about the need to eat well had made me into the “Food Nazi.” In the early part of my career, I had reached a point where I believed anyone who did not eat right was just wrong. Subconsciously, I may even have believed that heaven had a weight limit. I was so bad that when it was time for the lunch break at a seminar I was attending, the speaker actually said, “I do not recommend you eat with Dr. Ben, he’ll make you afraid of your food.”

After years of watching all my weight-loss patients gain an average of four pounds a week, and having all my diabetes patients end up needing to double their insulin, I finally changed my attitude and my method.

My attitude changed from one of law to one of love. My desire to help people had made me too harsh and legalistic. I realized that God does not love you any less if you do not eat well. And neither do I. We may have difficulty helping you, but we love you just the same.

I now have a system, which works for everyone. It helps you to improve nutritional habits, create better health, and to find your ideal weight. If you will let me, I would like to take you through a process that will allow you to be someone completely different in the future. Based on my failure to help anyone as the Food Nazi, I created an easy, loving way to help that works. Now they call me the “Food Prophet.”

Like most people, I need a diet in which I can eat all I want and still look and feel the way I want.

If you follow the Un-Diet perfectly, you can eat all you want. You only need to reduce quantities based on how far you deviate from the program.

Typically, when you think of the things you are supposed to be shoveling into your mouth, you think, Yucky—and pricey! I was exactly the same way. That is why, for even the most inexperienced of healthy eaters, the food and meals I recommend in the Un-Diet taste good and are affordable. Like me, one day you will enjoy your Un-Diet more than your old diet and will spend less money following it.

Buying foods like fruits, fresh and frozen vegetables, jasmine rice, and potatoes in bulk is extremely cheap. Compared to eating out or purchasing prepackaged foods, even protein foods like eggs, chicken, salmon, canned tuna, and turkey are comparably affordable.

You’ll find staple items such as flaxseed, almond milk, and almond butter in the health food store or health food section of the grocery store. Some of these items can get pricey, but they taste great, they are great for you, and they are worth it.

Health food stores also carry organic foods. Organic items, particularly meats, will help keep your diet more free of chemicals. However, organic food can be expensive and difficult to find.

My wife can shop for the week for my two children and me in about twelve minutes, with the occasional run to the health food store to reload. We enjoy eating at home so much more than going out now, based on taste and how good we look and feel eating this way.

We always cook several meals at a time. Chicken breasts, whole grain rice, sweet potatoes, and vegetables can be cooked in volume and used for several days.

When you go to work or travel, you can pack food in containers or bags to prevent hunger or being stuck in a place where there is nothing else to eat.

The Un-Diet Food Guide found on pages 82–84 easily explains when to eat carbohydrates, proteins, and fats—at the time God designed you to eat them.

When God developed the body, He specifically created certain foods for its use. These are the foods that grow and exist in nature. They are “Food by God.” God has built into His foods everything that is necessary, in just the right amounts and in the perfect balance needed, for proper digestion, distribution, and elimination of nutrients.

The BBG digestive system is an intricate network of food-processing organs whose purpose is to break down and utilize the food you eat. Each component of the digestive system is so divinely complex that no human could ever truly create or even describe it. Every single part is a universe unto itself. All the organs of this system have unique cells, glands, fluids, and functions that are divinely formulated to play a specific role in the amazing manner in which the very demanding BBG processes food. When you take in Food by God in its natural state, the digestive system will easily break it down, dispense the nutrients to body cells, and quickly eliminate leftover toxins and by-products.

Food by God is packed with living vitamins, minerals, water, fiber, and the enzymes needed to digest the food itself. These, along with dozens of other elements we know about—and countless numbers of elements only God knows about—are what make up Food by God.

Owner’s Manual Tip: Food by God Is “Smart Food”

Food by God and all the vitamins, minerals, and other elements it contains are put together by the intelligence of God. Food by God is smart food. When you eat Food by God, such as an apple or a carrot, it knows what to do inside the BBG, and the intelligent BBG knows what to do with it.

FOOD BY GOD LIST

The following is a selection of the most beneficial Foods by God:

Best Fruits

Berries are incredibly high in antioxidants and have a more moderate effect on blood sugar increase than typical fruits.

• Blackberries

• Blueberries

• Grapefruit

• Granny Smith Apples

(low in sugar)

• Raspberries

• Strawberries

Other Fruits

• Apples

• Bananas

• Cantaloupe

• Currants

• Grapes

• Honeydew melons

• Kiwi

• Lemons

• Limes

• Mangoes

• Nectarines

• Oranges

• Peaches

• Pears

• Pineapple

• Plums

• Prunes

• Raisins

• Tangerines

• Watermelon

Grains

Use sparingly—morning only is suggested. Less if you are suffering from: illness, disease, chronic joint and muscle pain, allergies, obesity, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and/or toxicity. Always add some healthy fat to grains.

• All-natural, whole-grain, chemical-free, sugar-free breads, flours, and cereals
• Barley
• Brown, jasmine, and basmati rice
• Buckwheat
• Cream of brown rice
• Grits
• Millet
• Oats
• Other hot wholegrain cereals (barley, quinoa, rye, spelt, millet, flax)
• Quinoa
• Rice cakes, rice noodles, puffed rice cereal
• Rye
• Spelt
• Unprocessed soy
• Whole Grain, Wheat-Free Breads:

• Manna Breads^®
• Ezekiel 4:9^® breads
• Alvarado St. breads
• Homemade bread made with whole spelt, kamut, or rye, preferably soaked or sprouted

Starchy Vegetables

Use in moderation, preferably during the early part of the day. As with grains, limit or eliminate if suffering from illness or obesity.

• Corn
• Peas
• Potatoes
• Squash
• Sweet potatoes

Vegetables

• Alfalfa
• Artichokes
• Arugula
• Asparagus
• Bamboo shoots
• Beets
• Broccoli
• Brussels sprouts
• Cabbage
• Carrots
• Cauliflower
• Celery
• Collard greens
• Cucumbers
• Eggplant
• Escarole
• Green beans
• Kale
• Lettuce: All kinds
• Mesclun
• Mustard greens
• Onions
• Parsley
• Parsnips
• Pea pods
• Portabello mushrooms
• Radishes
• Radiccio
• Scallions
• Seaweed
• Shallots
• Swiss chard
• Snap peas
• Snow peas
• Spinach
• String beans
• Tomatos (also considered fruit)
• Turnips
• Watercress
• Wheat grass
• Zucchini

Soaked Beans (Protein and carbohydrate)

Beans should be soaked, sprouted, or fermented to unlock important, naturally-occurring nutrients, to make them more easily digestible, and to increase the useable protein content. Soak by placing two parts water to every one part bean in a container and cover for 12 hours. Then, discard the water and thoroughly rinse the beans before cooking.

• Soy Products allowed are Miso and Tamari
• Chickpeas
• Kidney
• Lentil
• Lima
• Navy
• Pinto
• White

Seeds (Fat and protein)

• Flax
• Pumpkin
• Sesame
• Sunflower

Nuts (Fat and protein)

All nuts are best when eaten raw and organic.

• Almonds and Almond Butter
• Brazil nuts
• Hazelnuts
• Macadamia nuts and Macadamia Nut Butter
• Pine nuts
• Walnuts and Walnut Butter

(These are all good for creating a healthy, more basic environment.)

Good Proteins

Eggs

• Best are from organic, free-range chickens

Fish: Wild Only (No Farm Raised)

• Alaskan or Pacific Salmon
• Anchovies (canned in water or olive oil)
• Cod
• Flounder
• Haddock
• Halibut
• Herring
• Mackerel
• Mahi mahi
• Perch
• Pike
• Pollack
• Sardines (canned in water, sardine oil, mustard, or olive oil)
• Snapper
• Sole
• Tilapia

Avoid the following fish which have been found to contain too much mercury:

• Atlantic salmon
• Bass
• Grouper
• Orange Roughy
• Rainbow Trout
• Shark
• Swordfish
• Tuna

Poultry

• Chicken/turkey breast (Best from organic free-range)

Red Meat

• From organic, grass-fed beef
• Lean beef

Good Fats

• Almonds/Almond butter
• Avocados
• Crushed flaxseed (cold-pressed flaxseed oil can be used although not real stable)
• Extra-virgin coconut oil
• Fish oil
• Olives (Oil: cold-pressed, extra-virgin)
• Organic fats in grass-and vegetable-fed beef, egg yolks, and chicken
• Tahini (sesame and olive oil)
• Walnuts

Beverages

• Almond, rice, or oat milk
• Fresh fruit and vegetable juices
• Herbal tea
• Water: Reverse osmosis, distilled, fresh spring, filtered

Condiments

(Condiments are not used in heavy amounts so can do little damage, unless they are from a chemical source.)

• All-natural hot sauce
• Basil, curry, dill, garlic, ginger, horseradish, mint, miso, mustard, paprika, parsley, rosemary, tarragon, and thyme
• Butter Buds without hydrogenated oil
• Ginger
• High-quality vinegar
• Lemon juice
• Natural mustards
• Natural soy sauce or tamari
• Olive oil–based and low-fat, chemical-free dressings
• Sesame seeds
• Spices without MSG or hydrolyzed vegetable protein

Sweeteners

• Stevia
• Almond butter
• Brown rice syrup
• Fruit and fruit juice
• Organic, Raw Honey
• Organic, Unrefined maple syrup
• Unsweetened, all-natural fruit jellies and syrups

“Food by Man” is food that is created or altered by man. It is also food that God did not design for the express purpose of being consumed or processed by your BBG on a regular basis.

The farther away you get from eating the foods God specifically created for the BBG, or the farther these foods are from their natural forms, the less efficiently the digestive system can break them down. If at all.

Food by Man is almost all indigestible. Because these foods cannot pass through the digestive system quickly and cannot be broken down well, they will linger inside your body. This will block the processing of other nutrients, rob you of power, contaminate your organs, create excess fat storage, affect your mood, and contribute to every type of symptom and disease known to humankind.

Food by Man lacks life or any truly usable vitamins, minerals, or other nutrients. Anything that is devoid of nutrition or life is unlikely to be able to sustain life.

Owner’s Manual Tip: Food by Man Is Dumb

Food by Man is created by man and so does not contain any of God’s intelligence. Therefore, it does not know what to do in the BBG, and the BBG has no idea what to do with it. Food by Man is “dumb.” It is not smart to eat anything God did not make.

The Body by God #1 Nutrition Rule

The farther away any product is from its natural state, the way God made it, the more potentially harmful it is to the BBG. Therefore, these foods are highly likely to poison and damage your BBG and should definitely be considered “harmful if swallowed.”

For example: aspartame, fast-food burgers and fries, sugar, dairy products like milk, cheese, and ice cream, and refined flour products like breads, pastries, and cereal are all foods far removed from their natural states.

There are many eating decisions you can make that are far from the best for your BBG’s health and longevity. Fortunately, when working well, the digestive system is so incredible that it can break down and somehow utilize bad fuel sources. In addition, the body has multiple protective mechanisms for cleaning out toxins and restoring harmony, which can keep you alive or at least functioning.

After traveling all over the world with the U.S. Olympic Team, I discovered very quickly that outside the United States, very few people are overweight. On my first trip to Europe, the only person I saw with a large belly was a gentleman in the airport wearing an “I LOVE NEW YORK” T-shirt!

The reality is, Americans do not actually eat more than the rest of the world. In fact, in much of Europe, food is an even larger part of their culture, and their diet contains even more rich and fattening foods. The problem is not that Americans eat more food. The problem is that we eat more Food by Man.

The excessive obesity and the extremely high rate of nutritionally related disease in Western society is related less to how much food Americans eat than to what is done to those foods. Health problems caused by food in the United States are mostly due to the fact that a high percentage of the American diet is made up of highly refined convenient and fast foods. These foods are prepared with an abundance of chemicals, additives, and preservatives, many of which are not even allowed in other parts of the world.

Outside America, meals are more often prepared fresh, from scratch and with actual foods, not synthetic convenience foods from a box or a package retrieved through a drive-up window.

Convenient, refined foods contain sugar-based and other types of chemical additives that make food impossible for your BBG to process or utilize. When food materials linger in the system, they cause damage to the organs, poison the body, block absorption of other nutrients, and get stored as a lot of excess baggage—fat.

Back in eighth-grade chemistry class, I learned the basic equation that is the foundation for the entire chemical world: A + B = C.

What this formula means is that when you take substance A and add it to substance B, it will equal substance C. It also means that if you take substance A, add it to substance B, and then add something else, such as P or S, you no longer get substance C. Instead, you get something entirely different: A + B + S or P = CS or CP.

For example, if you take 2 hydrogens and add 1 oxygen, you get H₂O, or water (2 H + 1 O = H₂O). However, if you take 2 hydrogens and add 2 oxygens, you no longer get water; you get hydrogen peroxide (2 H + 2 O = H₂O₂). You don’t have to be a licensed nutritionist to realize that a glass of hydrogen peroxide is not nearly as nutritious—or refreshing—as a glass of water.

God has formulated your bloodstream in much the same way. A and B are all the essential, important, natural elements God has added to your body to create C. C is pure, life-giving blood; A + B = C (pure, healthy blood). However, when you take in medications or chemicals and toxins found in the convenient, refined Food by Man, you now have A + B + XYZ = CXYZ or W or R or something other than the blood God designed you to have coursing through your BBG.

While in emergency situations some medications may be necessary, and it would be impossible to eliminate all chemicals, toxins, and Food by Man, their intake should be limited. Thankfully, the BBG is able to cleanse itself as long as the level of poisons is not too overwhelming.

Nutrition Formula for Health

When you take in un-man-ipulated, chemical-free Food by God, or FBG, the body more easily converts it into A and B. As a result, you are most likely to get clean, healthy C.

Owner’s Manual Tip

If you fuel your body with Food by Man, the energy required to operate the digestive system becomes so great that power will be robbed from the other systems in the body. This is particularly dangerous because it will eventually weaken the BBG immune system.

Fueling with Food by God will minimize the amount of power needed for digestion, leaving more power for the rest of the body.

In 1 Corinthians 3:16–17, we are told that a body is one place where God lives: “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.” The Bible is saying that your Body by God is God’s temple, and you should not poison, defile, or destroy it.

Your temple, your Body by God, was created to be kept as sacred and pure as possible. Food by Man is food that is toxic, full of chemicals, or does not belong in the system. That is why in the Old Testament many types of these foods are called “unclean.”

Eating Food by Man on a regular basis is like going to your place of worship every day and tossing garbage and chemicals all over the altar of God’s house. That’s not right.

On the following page is a list of primary examples of man-made fuels, or Food by Man. These foods are far away from what God created and designed for the human body to consume and process:

FOOD BY MAN

The following is a selection of primary Foods by Man, which are not beneficial to your health:

• Pork
• Shellfish
• Sugar Substitutes
• Hydrogenated Oils
• Fast, Refined, and Fried Foods
• Additives, Colorings, Flavorings, and Preservatives
• Other Animal Products
• Caffeine
• Non-organic, Pasteurized Dairy
• Refined Sugar
• Table Salt
• White Foods

You do not have to avoid everything on this list to get healthier and look and feel better! While the Un-Diet teaches reducing these foods, it is more about adding better ones. I believe you will find that the Food by God I recommend is not only healthy, but can be enjoyable as well. While it may be challenging to reduce Food by Man in your diet, by following the Un-Diet Food Guide on pages 82–84 you will see remarkable improvements even while still eating the modern Food by Man diet.

Foods receiving poor ratings from God in the Bible are usually good ones to avoid putting in your mouth. In His infinite wisdom concerning all of life, health, and longevity, God mentions that “the pig . . . is unclean for you” (Lev. 11:7). Other animals referred to on this list are camels, dogs, and horses—all good animals to steer clear of consuming.

While eating meat from the wrong animals doesn’t keep you out of heaven or make you a bad person, avoiding pork turns out to be a solid recommendation. Because pig tissues are so high in fat, their flesh absorbs many of the toxins and poisons they are exposed to as a result of their lifestyle.

Like all animal products, pork is high in saturated fat and cholesterol. The numerous pork by-products, such as ham, sausage, and bacon, are also heavily treated with salt, sugar, and various chemicals. This makes them additionally harmful to the digestive organs of your BBG fuel processing system.

As you ingest the meat and meat by-products of pigs, the poisons in their flesh, along with the dangers of consuming animal products and chemically treated foods, are unnaturally passed on to you.

The Bible also states, “Anything living in the water that does not have fins and scales is to be detestable to you” (Lev. 11:12). This is also sound wisdom, as shellfish are another of the foods most toxic to the Body by God’s internal environment.

(Other animals on this list categorized alongside shellfish are eagles, vultures, ravens, owls, and insects.)

Fish droppings are the main diet of shellfish. Today, fish are exposed to the high level of chemicals now present in the earth’s waters. The fish then excrete these chemicals in a concentrated form. These poisonous fish droppings are then consumed by shellfish such as crab, clams, mussels, and lobster, which are little more than the scavengers of the seafloor.

Like pork products, shellfish will literally pollute your body’s ecosystem, defile your temple, and become hazardous to your health.

Old Testament Nutritional Advice for Today

I am sure that if eating the common Foods by Man existed at the time the Old Testament was being written, they would have been listed in the book of Leviticus as additional “unclean” foods to be avoided in order to keep your temple (body) holy.

The taste for sugar is a craving shared by all. The problem is that sugar can be potentially harmful to your organs, lower your energy, affect your mood, rot your teeth, and cause you to gain fat when it is present in your food on a regular basis. The desire for this element is so great, however, that man has searched both land and laboratory for substitutes that imitate the pleasurable flavor of sugar but don’t have the negative consequences.

This quest has resulted in several chemical experiments, creating formulas such as saccharine, aspartame, sucralose, sorbitol, maltodextrin, dextrose, and several other scary-sounding synthetic alternatives.

The digestive organs of your BBG fuel digesting system are highly sensitive. The effects that artificial materials will have on their function is extremely perilous. (Remember: A + B = C) You should now sense danger when it comes to ingesting any chemical alternatives such as these. In fact, these artificial materials are so dangerous that if a sugar substitute is added to a product, manufacturers must put a warning label on the package to alert health-conscious consumers.

Natural sweeteners (like honey or maple syrup) still in their natural states are the only ones designed by God to be consumed and assimilated by the living cells of the BBG. Only God’s supernatural intelligence is capable of developing something that allows for completely safe consumption.

Any synthetic sweeteners created by a human being in a laboratory, or a natural sweetener that has been refined, modified, or changed, cannot properly move through the essential organs of digestion or react without error with the bloodstream. As a result, somewhere along the line, you will run into a health problem due to eating these products.

All sugar, salt, or fat substitutes of any kind are chemically based, highly refined, and created in a laboratory by men and not in nature by God. The first widely used sugar substitute was saccharine, also known as Sweet ’N Low. Large doses of this chemical concoction were found to cause cancer in laboratory animals. Anything promoting death in large doses cannot promote life or be healthy in small doses.

This discovery should have served as a warning of the toxic, pathological nature of chemical sweeteners. However, when the dangers of saccharine became known, rather than aborting further efforts to manipulate the human sweet tooth, scientists began looking for a saccharine substitute. Eventually, they created aspartame.

The diet product known as aspartame, or the name brand NutraSweet, is the one typically found in nearly all “sugar-free” products. Aspartame was chemically isolated in a laboratory, making aspartame no longer in its natural state and therefore no longer from God. This should issue an immediate warning to you that the effects of consuming aspartame can be unpredictable and potentially hazardous to your BBG.

Aspartame has an effect similar to that of two other Foods by Man: monosodium glutamate, otherwise known as MSG, and hydrolyzed vegetable proteins. None of these react well chemically within the organ systems and can actually be considered “chemical poisons.” These compounds are extremely toxic to the brain and can cause serious chronic neurological disorders as well as a host of other symptoms.

Remember the Body by God #1 Nutrition Rule: The farther away any product is from its natural state, the way God made it, the more potentially harmful it is to the BBG. Artificial additives or chemically altered substances are actually the farthest away from any tree, river, field, or farm. Therefore, they are highly likely to poison and damage your BBG. Chemical sweeteners and seasonings should definitely be considered “harmful if swallowed.”

Hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils, which contain “trans-fatty acids,” are created by an artificial processing of vegetable oils. This is done to retard spoilage and keep baked sweets and margarine from falling apart or melting at room temperature. Once again, any edible material that has been changed, altered, or distorted in any way is no longer intended for BBG use and is therefore unsafe. Because hydrogenated oils cannot be processed normally by the body, they negatively affects cholesterol levels and a certain percentage of all heart and circulatory disease every year is actually directly attributed to the intake of trans-fats.

Found in margarine, baked goods, and refined, fast, and packaged foods, hydrogenated oils are a common ingredient of the kind of quick snacks found in vending machines, fast-food restaurants, and convenience stores everywhere. If at all possible, they should be totally avoided.

The additives, colorings, flavorings, and preservatives introduced to modern food products and beverages are nothing more than pure chemical compounds. The effects of these chemicals over time cause serious damage to the BBG’s delicate digestive system.

For the most part, the Body by God is unable to break down foods and drinks that have been refined with these toxic chemicals. As mentioned earlier, when food materials linger in the system, they cause damage to the organs, poison the body, block the absorption of nutrients, and make you fat.

Many colorings, additives, flavorings, and preservatives like sulfites, nitrites, nitrates, salicylates, propylene, and glycol are made up of the same materials as some of the chemicals you will find in household cleaners, in your medicine cabinets, or in maintenance products in your garage!

The disease, obesity, emotional problems, and learning disorders related specifically to the use of these compounds is prevalent mostly in the United States. That is because most such food additives are not even approved in other countries.

The risk factors here should be obvious. These are not only chemicals, but chemicals designed with the specific purpose of manipulating, preserving, and altering the matter of the products that contain them. They will have the same effect on the cells of your brain and body, and so should be approached with extreme caution.

Fast, refined, and fried foods such as hamburgers, fries, sodas, cookies, donuts, chips, fried chicken, and other greasy, refined, and especially packaged foods are extremely difficult, if not impossible, to process or digest. These highly fabricated, counterfeit foods are lacking any usable nutrition, are outrageously high in unhealthy types of fats, and contain many of the dangerous additives, colorings, flavorings, and preservatives mentioned earlier.

This is another case of foods that will linger in the system and cause harm. As a result, not only do they not supply you with any nourishment, they block your colon. This stops you from being able to absorb the foods that do have nutritional value.

These foods rob your delicate BBG systems of power. As a result, you become tired and fatigued, which is not a normal way to feel. Although it may seem “normal” if this is your typical diet and way of feeling.

The power being drained by these fast, refined, and impossible-to-process foods is taken directly from your BBG immune system and other organ functions. This will eventually lead to serious health complications and slow down or even stop the healing process. Refined, convenient foods are a leading contributor to all intestinal diseases, up to and including colon cancer.

In addition to the fat storage that results from all foods that stay in the digestive system, the fat, calorie, and carbohydrate levels of these foods are so incredibly high, excess fat is guaranteed to be deposited somewhere on your body. This type of “junk” food not only is harmful to the health of your BBG, but it is also the chief cause of your body’s becoming enlarged.

Many lean animal products are part of the guidelines for fueling found in your Owner’s Manual Un-Diet program. However, for the following reasons, they should be eaten only as recommended.

Fruits and vegetables are the true Food by God. You can pull them right off the tree or right out of the ground and eat them “as is.” Their fleshy tissues are alive and packed with high-quality vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and other nutrients, all packed in water. Because your BBG is also living and made up of mostly water, the human body effortlessly absorbs these nutrients when eaten according to the Un-Diet Food Guide. The “living waters” present in these foods are God’s perfect meal.

The high fiber content of fruits and vegetables allows for unused elements to swiftly exit the body. On the opposite end of the food processing spectrum are animals. Animal flesh is dry, fiber-less, and like all Food by Man—dead.

In truth, God did not design your BBG to be a carnivore, or meat eater. Completely different from humans, carnivores such as dogs, lions, and grizzly bears have large fangs, claws, and a digestive system designed specifically for the task of absorbing meat. They are also able to eat their meat raw, when it is not dried out and the enzymes needed for processing it are still living. However, you should not eat raw meat. Your BBG digestive system is not equipped to appropriately break down this uncooked meat or to deal with the high levels of germs and bacteria that are present within the flesh.

The fact that you must cook meat thoroughly to avoid contracting a disease from some deadly organism living inside should also indicate to you that the overuse of animal products can be harmful.

In addition to the animal flesh itself, the very source of animal products creates an additional pitfall. The chickens, pigs, turkeys, and cows we get our meat and milk from are typically not out roaming free in nature as God intended. Instead, today’s commercial animal product farms are more like factories.

To speed up production and avoid dealing with health issues, commercial animals are fed and injected with large amounts of antibiotics, steroids, drugs, and hormones. Unless you raise or hunt your own animals, the meat is neither clean nor created by God. Instead, it is manufactured, and tainted, by man. For this reason, if you can, attempt to get organically raised grass and vegetable-fed meats and animal products.

While animals raised naturally, eating grass and vegetables, contain healthier types of fats, meat from commercially grown animals contains saturated fat and is high in cholesterol. When saturated fats and cholesterol are present in high levels in the bloodstream, they will settle in and begin to block the arteries and vessels that carry blood to and from the heart. This is yet another reason to eat only the foods recommended in your Owner’s Manual.

The rough, fatty flesh of meat, particularly red meat, along with the high saturated fat content, makes it extremely hard to break down and fully process. Putting large amounts of meat into your system will create all the hazards and disease associated with foods that do not pass through the digestive organs quickly and easily.

As a result, inappropriate or overuse of animal products should be avoided to extend the life of your BBG.

In addition to the perils of the other animal products already discussed, dairy products are in a whole new category of man-made foods. God designed dairy products for a completely different animal. Cow’s milk was created for cows. In fact, realistically, it was not even created for cows, but for baby cows.

While milk was created by God (for calves), I’ve always wondered who was the first person to bend over, look under the cow, and say, “I’m going to start sucking on those things and if it tastes good, I’m going to put it in my coffee.”

In addition to being intended for an entirely different species, cow’s milk has to go through a processing and refining system known as “pasteurization” in order to make it safe to use for drinking and cooking. The fact that milk must be treated before human consumption should already be an indicator to you that it is not something you should regularly ingest.

During this treatment, the milk is heated to kill off germs. Unfortunately, when something is heated in this manner, not only are the germs destroyed, but so are many of the nutrients, as well as the enzymes necessary for digesting the nutrients.

A calf cannot survive on this refined milk. Neither can a human. In fact, dairy products are a leading cause of allergic reactions and create a tremendous amount of malfunction in the BBG.

The milk from a cow is designed for the specific purpose of adding several hundred pounds to the size of its offspring in a short period of time. In order to accomplish this enormous task, “calves’ milk” is made up of a high percentage of proteins, and the size of these proteins is extremely large. Contrary to that, human breast milk was created with the goal of adding only a couple of dozen pounds to children in a similar period of time. Therefore, “human milk” has a much lower concentration of protein, and the size of the proteins are much smaller by comparison.

As you get older, your BBG is less equipped to break down milk. It appears that God did not design adult humans, or any other mature animal for that matter, to consume milk. This makes sense, because as you grow it gets harder to stick your head under a cow.

Contrary to popular belief, milk and dairy products do not give you strong bones. Due to pasteurization and the fact that the nutrients in cow’s milk were meant for calves, the calcium in milk and dairy products cannot be efficiently used by humans for bone growth. Additionally, dairy products create a dangerous acidic environment* in the body. The results of this acidic condition cause deterioration of the delicate bone tissue. This makes dairy products bad for bone growth, instead of good for it.

Potentially, the most dangerous part of dairy consumption, however, is the treatment of the cows themselves. As mentioned previously, cows are fed and injected with a host of antibiotics, drugs, steroids, and hormones during their lives. A portion of these chemicals and poisons will naturally end up in the milk these cows produce, and eventually on top of your cereal.

If you choose to use dairy products, buy raw, organic items from a farm, health food store, or special service if possible.

Fortunately for you and your Body by God, it is quite possible to obtain a significant amount of calcium without dairy products, by eating plenty of green leafy vegetables (Where do you think cows get it from?) and other calcium-rich foods actually created for your species.

Rice and almond milk make excellent replacements for cow’s milk. They are natural, taste sweeter than milk, and can be found in health food stores and most grocery stores.

Caffeine is a common stimulant found in everything from chocolate, coffee, and soda to vitamins, herbs, and medication. Many people use it to raise their normal energy levels in the morning. This process is repeated to keep them awake throughout the day, so that by the next morning it has to be started all over again.

The problem is that God designed your BBG to stay balanced. The body is always seeking what is called homeostasis, or a natural, God-given balance of function and physiology. If you drink or swallow something that elevates the body’s power level, you cause a disturbance in this balance, and the body tries to save itself by bringing power levels back down. Over time, your Body by God keeps adjusting its natural power state downward to compensate for this overstimulation.

That is why it eventually takes more and more caffeine to give you any effect. Sooner or later you have to drink a cup of coffee just to get back to “tired.”

Like all stimulants, every time you drink caffeine, you affect your heart function, alter your vascular flow, and overstimulate digestive and glandular activity. Anytime you manipulate your BBG in any way, you end up throwing off your normal energy balance, which will eventually cause organ system failure and glandular meltdown.

The regular use of caffeine or any material that speeds up body function will ultimately slow it down.

Sugar comes from the sugarcane plant, which grows in nature. But in order to create the sugar you find in all packaged foods, food additives, white packets, and on your kitchen table, these natural plants go through intensive refining. The refining process turns sugar into a concentrated chemical without any nutritional worth that is far removed from its natural state as a plant.

As with any chemical, when sugar is ingested by your body it can create negative overreactions by the glands and many of the organs, as well as altering the very physiology of the brain. Depression, thought dysfunction, diabetes, and dozens of other disorders all can be linked to the use of sugar on a regular basis. Because excess sugar is stored as fat, refined sugar is also a leading cause of obesity.

When you ingest a chemical like sugar, it can have the same effect as any addictive drug. Your BBG defense system’s organs of immunity react to sugar in the same manner as they react to tobacco, marijuana, cocaine, alcohol, and many other drugs or allergens—by forming antibodies against it. Simply put, these antibodies will then continuously crave the chemical and, as a result, you form a physical addiction to sugar.

Table salt is another refined food, and so by definition is also no longer fit for human consumption. The highly acidic nature of refined salt and the high concentration of sodium it contains negatively affect the body’s physiology and stress the cardiovascular system, the digestive system, the kidneys, the skeletal system, and other organs of the BBG.

The “white” foods are white rice and foods made from white flour, such as white bread, pastries, and white pasta. White foods have all been so massively refined by modern food production that there is no nutrition left to be absorbed by your Body by God. All the fiber, vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients needed for good health have been taken out. Therefore, white foods offer no benefit to your internal cells and systems.

Much like fried foods or other heavily refined consumables, white foods move slowly through the digestive system and block the intestines. Once again, this stops you from absorbing and eliminating nutrients and delays proper processing. This leaves the BBG vulnerable to intestinal illnesses, weight gain, fatigue, allergies, toxicity, and colon cancer associated with foods that hinder the function of your digestive organs.

The next time someone asks you to put a white food in your mouth, say that you might as well put it in the other end—because that is where it will end up getting stuck anyway.