Amish Farm Raid, the Biblical Diet, and the Vitamin K Shot | Jordan Rubin

I don't think someone becomes a pediatrician to enter into a broken system. Yeah, but at the same time, I see few and far between medical doctors truly digging into the research. They trust the system. And something common that I'll hear, and this is sad, if it was important to learn, I would have learned it in medical school. So when you're getting a half gallon of milk, you're not getting milk from one farm, it's mixed together with dozens of farms. So some might be completely fed, and some might be at the bare minimum.

Well, now, hopefully with RFK Jr. getting in and running HHS, we'll be able to stop arresting the local Amish farmers from selling their raw milk.

The farmer you're referring to, who's the poster child for being arrested, I've been buying from and I've known for 25 years. Here's my opinion. You should have the right to boil your milk if you choose, consume it raw if you choose, just like we do meat. And eggs today. You can break God's commandments, but if you try, they'll end up breaking you.

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So that's awesome.

So we just get to talk more.

Yes, but we're gonna have to have some surprising anecdotes that we don't know about each other. That's right. And the world doesn't know.

That's right. Well, I know after this that you are still working on your pickleball game and have some room for improvement.

Uh, yeah, I think, um, Josh as we age, and you're gonna really see this. So you gotta get on your game when— because your girls are younger. My kids are so much better than me at almost every single athletic endeavor, and they let me know it. So I am actually— you'll find this interesting— I am embarking on a shoulder training program for my internal and external rotator muscles so that I can throw a football harder and farther for my daughter who plays flag football, so that I can be equivalent to a female high school flag football quarterback.

Well, I know one of the things you told me once is that you, uh, you formulate supplements not just for, you know, the millions of people out there who take your supplements that you've done for, you know, a number of companies, but you formulate supplements for yourself and for your family. Talk to me about, like, what are some supplements that you formulated for yourself and for your family that you guys are currently taking?

There are so many, and if you look in my pantry, you'll see a smattering of Ancient Nutrition products, our company, but then I have a lot of products in Mason jars, baggies, because what I always say is, hey, whatever pilot run of products you're doing, I wanna grab some of those, or sometimes I'll ask our team to whip up some things in the lab. In fact, very close to where we're seated right now is our Tennessee laboratory, and I was in there poking around to see what samples I could snag. I think, for example, all of the organ products that we have created, so with, liver, heart, kidney, etc. That was something that you and I talked about. We need these for us because they're such cornerstone products. Even the original Bone Broth Protein product was something that was created so that I could use it when I was battling a serious knee injury. Certain probiotics that I'm using right now, combined with parabiotics and postbiotics, I've got in R&D. So I'm always using things that are a step ahead. I'm a magnesium that has, uh, bound to 18 amino acids that's green and wonderful and has humic and fulvic acid in it. So we're constantly ideating and manufacturing products for companies like Ancient Nutrition, and then our company Beyond Organic, or BYO, manufactures for other great brands. So I'm constantly tinkering and looking at ways to improve the health of my family. You'll appreciate this. It's not as much that it's a supplement, but I just came back from Greece, and the Greek olive farmers are so passionate about their olive oil that I bought a year's supply of special olive oil that was first press, ultra cold processed, blah blah blah, from wild olives that don't get enough water. And every morning now, I set out shot glasses with either an ounce, or for my youngest daughter, a half ounce of olive oil, and we all take those shots. And we often take that along with communion at dinner.

Well, I was gonna say, I mean, think about it, you could do a lineup here of some raw milk, some raw eggs, some cold-pressed olive oil, and then, and then communion with it.

Yes. And so we're working on some polyphenolic supplements in the form of capsules, tablets, but also tease, et cetera. So over the course of the next year, I'm sure on the Dr. Axe Show, we will share some groundbreaking information with the audience. Because I often said to you off the air that we should have an ideation conversation in plain sight where we talk about, hey, what do you think about this? And imagine if we could do that and let people just see it unfold versus us reporting the news. Let's just make the news.

Well, you know, one of the things I think that maybe a lot of people don't realize about supplements is what a big deal it is to have a real food-based supplement versus a synthetic supplement. Because I mean, for a lot of you listening, you'd be better off not taking any supplements than going out to your local drugstore and just getting the cheapest, you know, vitamin C or calcium on the shelf. In fact, there's studies showing that some of these calcium supplements, if they're taken isolated, could increase your risk of coronary, you know, heart disease and a number of other issues. So talk about why that is, why it's important to do food-based, why some of these synthetics aren't good, and how they could actually be bad for us.

There's really two issues. Number one, and this is coming to light more and more now, and I'm excited about it— if you look at a vitamin, multivitamin for example, whether it's in a gummy or a tablet or a capsule at a drugstore, there are loads of chemicals in there. You've got dyes, you've got binders like titanium dioxide. You've got magnesium stearate, which is like a lubricant for the automotive industry. These are in our products. But then you look at the supplements and the ingredients of vitamins and minerals themselves. So we're in the agriculture business, so we know a little bit about calcium carbonate. It's called limestone or lime, and you buy it for, gosh, some ridiculously low price, like $40 a ton. That— wow. And you spread it on your land. I don't even like it for our land because it takes 5 years to break down. So this is literally limestone. There are lime pits, and they give you this massive tractor-trailer load, and they dump the dust on your land. But because it is inorganic, it takes years for the microbes to break it down like it would a rock. That $40 a ton, maybe it costs $80 a ton, whatever, for 2,221 pounds That's calcium carbonate. That's what we put in our calcium supplements and in our multis. And if you see calcium citrate, because it's more absorbable, that's calcium carbonate reacted to citric acid, which likely comes from non-GMO corn. So this is one example. Vitamin C, ascorbic acid, is made in a laboratory. It is 99.9% synthesized. There was no orange or grapefruit or lemon involved. And it is also made likely from fermented non-GMO corn, or excuse me, fermented GMO corn. Wow. I should have said GMO before. Those are just two. Then you get into the B vitamins, and you look at B6, and it says pyridoxine hydrochloride. So pyridoxine is vitamin B6. It's reacted to hydrochloric acid, and some have written that these B vitamins come from activated sewage sludge. And then you look at folic acid and how dangerous that can be, particularly for those who don't methylate properly. B12, cyanocobalamin, is cyanide and cobalt. So when you say you're better off not taking a supplement than a multivitamin that comes from a pharmacy, you could be accurate.

Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, yeah, I've seen several studies, most of them on calcium being one of the worst because you also need so many other nutrients to absorb calcium in the first place. And as you're saying, if your body can't break it down, well, what ends up happening? Well, sometimes you detoxify it, but if you're not doing that well, it can get lodged in the arteries, causing calcification of the arteries and other— and hardening of the arteries and more issues there. So there's no doubt that a lot of these supplements people are taking today are absolute trash. I think that's also why there's some conflicting research. I mean, there's studies showing that taking vitamins can extend your life, and then you'll have one the next week showing actually it makes no difference whatsoever. Um, as well, you know, another one is organic. I, I, I'd love for you to share and sort of unveil the truth about organic foods. Okay. Are they better? Uh, are they a lot better? Like, like when it comes to, if somebody goes to their store, they buy organic chicken, Are those chickens all now, 'cause it says organic, running around on an acre pasture with no restrictions and eating clean food?

I would say that organic is by and large better than conventional because you are not allowed to use toxic chemicals. Now notice that I said toxic. There are definitely allowances for chemicals in the organic system. And I know that because we've gone through organic certification on our farms and beyond. It's our name, Beyond Organic. Should suggest. Organic is going to have less chemicals, but in the case of chicken— and I said this to a farmer recently at a farm event we had— organic chicken is not phenomenal, and it's the best we can get at groceries and health food stores these days. There really needs to be a national, if not multiple regional, pasture chicken brands, and I'm hearing that that's in the works. But for example, even organic chickens, the crossbreed of broiler, which is what a chicken or a hen raised for meat is called, they are bred to grow super fast. They don't move around very much, and they have massive breast tissue or white meat, because we are very biased to white meat, even though you and I both know that dark meat chicken is more nutritious. And has many additional compounds to white meat. So I would say organic chicken is much better. That's what I buy unless I'm eating wild or pasture-raised chicken from our farm, or if I can find it out in the market, and it's few and far between. But in general, you look at an orange, organic's gonna be better than non-organic. You look at grains, organic's gonna be better than non-organic. Organic is always non-GMO, and I'm grateful for organic, but the truth is, Josh, as you know, Every standard, there are those who meet the bare minimum and those who go above and beyond. So there are some organic farms that are phenomenal, others not so much. And if you're buying dairy, for example, from Organic Valley or Horizon that's organic, that's a massive co-op of thousands of farmers. So when you're getting a half gallon of milk, you're not getting milk from one farm, it's mixed together with dozens of farms. So some might be completely grass-fed, and some might be at the bare minimum, which is letting the animals graze for— I want to say it's 100 days a year mandatory, and then they can get supplemental feed, etc. So it is better. Yeah. But knowing truly where your food comes from and having a little more transparency, particularly from local farms, is a little more ideal. And I hope that we're going to see a resurgence of this happening across the country, where you can either buy from a local farm or purchase through the mail certain foods or ingredients, as I have been for 30 years, that, um, you can choose to do without restriction. I'm seeing some of that opening up, and it's great to see people get to make their own informed decisions on what they eat and what they drink.

Well, now hopefully with RFK Jr. getting in and running HHS will be able to stop arresting the local Amish farmers from selling their raw milk. Now, you've been doing this illegally, right, drinking raw milk for, for years?

Well, to be clear, it's legal to drink it, it's illegal to— and illegal to buy it, it's illegal to sell it. And, um, the farmer you're referring to who's the poster child for being arrested, I've been uh, buying from, and I've known for 25 years. And it's been interesting, the last several, I almost feel like it's been a donation to continue to buy from him. But we've seen him get raided. His name's Amos Miller, by the way, and this has made national news. His inventory's been confiscated. And he is a simple Amish farmer who has built a great business where different pockets of the country he will ship a lot of food to. They will act like co-ops, and people come to buy their food, sometimes driving hours. And if you understand the customer of an Amos Miller, we're talking about people who have serious health conditions. They can't digest conventional dairy. They can't consume meat because of the little bit of preservatives that are in it. They have children with autism spectrum disorders These individuals will go to great lengths to get food. They will join membership clubs with all full consent. And the way that I see it, because raw milk is at the center of this issue and RFK Jr. had a post on X, do you still call it a tweet or you call it a tweet, but then you call it X?

I don't think anybody knows.

Whatever he did on X, formerly known as Twitter, listed the therapies that he personally wants to see legal on a federal level and what he uses himself, and raw milk was right there. Here's my opinion: you should have the right to boil your milk if you choose, consume it raw if you choose, just like we do meat and eggs today, right?

Yeah.

Do I believe raw milk's a nourishing food for many, many? Absolutely. Bottom line, we should be able to choose, because unfairly, we're kind of not able to choose what goes in our water with the fluoridation, chlorine, chloramine, and other residues from pharmaceuticals, right? There's plenty of things we don't know. We don't know how to read 5 types of sugar or 4 different ways to spell out maltodextrin, which is a very refined starch from corn. So we should be able to choose what kind of milk we consume, because I think we're capable of understanding that, because it's not a crazy chemical that's thrust upon us. I mean, try looking at a toothpaste or skincare that's conventional and seeing if the average person knows what 1/10 of those ingredients are.

Yeah.

Anyway, I'm on a rant now, but yes, I believe that Amish farmers are going to have more freedom. I still think purchasing from them will require some type of membership. They do these herd shares where everybody buys a part of a cow or, or the goat or the sheep. I do see opportunities in the future for individuals to make choices on what they eat based on their needs with their diet. And the truth is, these items are not easily able to be purchased in stores. Now, what's interesting, you probably saw this, Sprouts carries raw kefir nationwide, but it's labeled for pets.

Mm.

So that's the best that we can do at this point.

Yeah.

And humans make the decision to consume it.

Well, and you drank raw milk or raw kefir as part of healing Crohn's and colitis, right? Yes.

I've been consuming raw dairy for 30 years now. Wow.

And—

a little over maybe, and all of my family does, and they do great. Right now we like water buffalo milk, we'll consume sheep milk, always try to consume A2 dairy. A lot of it we get from our own farms, and I think dairy can be a great source of nutrition, provided that you're able to choose and purchase the right kind.

Well, let's talk about that, because again, you mentioned here that, okay, you drink raw milk. You mentioned A2 as well. You've— we've talked about several things. When someone is buying dairy, what are all the things they need to look for, consider, to stay away from, or what they want in a quality dairy product?

Let me start with the ideal dairy product, and then this can get a little long. And you and I have a new book coming out next year, and we actually give the hierarchy of dairy from best to worst, as we do with bread, because We need to be realistic. These foods are ancient, and people have thrived on bread and dairy. How come today so many people are sensitive to dairy and grains? So there's something had to have happened throughout history. When it comes to dairy, the standard for me would be raw, grass-fed A2. Now notice I didn't say certified organic because a lot of these farms are not certified that have raw dairy available. They're small farms, et cetera. Would I prefer they be organic?

Absolutely. Yeah, but even then, many of them, to your point, is they're not using pesticides, they're not using chemicals, whether they have the certification or not. That's what we want.

Correct, yes. And I do think certifications are a third-party validation, but for example, Amos Miller, who I've been buying from for almost 30 years, I know him, I trust not only his farm, but the network of farms, and he deals with the sickest of the sick individuals who are sensitive to any alteration. So A2, which is a type of casein that is less inflammatory, more digestible than A1. So if you think about dairy, most people in America believe that every cow is black and white. I call it the Chick-fil-A cow. It's known as a Holstein or a Holstein Red. Friesian. They have approximately 50% A1 protein and 50% A2, maybe even less, uh, A2. And I know this because I've tested thousands of cows. 10,000, I think, is the number, because we were working on building an A2 herd. The original cow, which you see with hump on its back and floppy ears, in America, that would be the American Brahman. In India and Africa, they call it zebu in Afrikaans. It's a different species of cow, Bos indicus. They produce only A2 milk. Sheep produce only A2 milk. Goats, water buffalo, and I did research, Josh, into animals we would never consume their milk, like dogs and cats, et cetera. But most importantly, humans only produce A2 milk. They do not produce A1. So we're introducing a foreign protein into our bodies and in some cases at birth. So I have a nephew who just had a baby, and his— the mom's milk did not let down even after a week. And so she is on an organic formula, and they were proud to tell me that, and I'm happy that he made that choice. But the dairy's A1 because that's what's available. Now there's starting to be some goat milk formulas or A2 specifically, but the number one individual who needs A2 milk's an infant. Yeah. And so when I had our first child, Joshua, when he was weaned, I started making him a formula, and I used a combination of raw sheep and goat milk as a base. I adopted 5 children after that. 2 of them were infants, and I used goat and sheep milk combination because they don't know how to metabolize A1 dairy, and I believe A2 would be much healthier for them. And it's the same thing for adults. So A2 grass-fed would be ideal. Um, some other things I think about— I like dairy that is naturally homogenized. Cow's milk— you probably remember this, some of you who are listening, or your parents— when the milkman would deliver cow's milk, the cream would rise to the top, and we still see that. Goat, sheep, and water buffalo milk, those are all naturally homogenized. So you don't have to pour the cream off, et cetera, and that's fine, I don't mind doing that, but the problem is modern dairy is homogenized, and homogenization, which forces the milk fat globules to be smaller through a certain filter to homogenize with the dairy, is known to cause a chemical reaction with an enzyme, xanthine oxidase, which could be damaging to your blood vessels. So homogenation can be dangerous. Pasteurization— notice I said raw A2 grass-fed— pasteurization destroys a lot of the B vitamins, almost all the vitamin C, and all of the enzymes— is a big one— including alkaline phosphatase. That's a test for pasteurization. So you got Raw dairy, high in alkaline phosphatase. They measure for alkaline phosphatase and it has to be near zero to be a proper pasteurization. Alkaline phosphatase is required to absorb calcium.

Wow.

So the calcium in the milk is less absorbable when it's pasteurized and the dozens if not hundreds of gut microbes that you get in raw milk is gone when you pasteurize it.

You know, you talked about the importance for infants getting milk, and there are so many mothers out there, and our hearts go out to anybody who— we can't produce enough milk. I know that's very hard, very difficult. I've had family members who've been in that situation where you want to make sure with an infant that they are as well nourished as, as anyone ever. It's such an important time of life for development. But when we look at the conventional baby formulas out there today, I mean, it's literally one of the worst, just about the worst thing you could give your kids. I mean, it's just terrible.

Well, years ago, a large company that now owns my first company, Garden of Life, Nestlé, there was big backlash against Nestlé, and they were called baby killers and water stealers. And it was because Nestlé developed one of the most successful infant formulas, and they actually ran a campaign seen throughout the country with billboards showing animals nursing, but donkeys and animals we wouldn't consider very clean. And subconsciously, that was creating this idea that breastfeeding is barbaric and formula is better. Like, man can actually understand and determine and, and create something better than what mother's milk is. And we could do a whole show on mother's milk. Mother's milk is so amazing. Josh, it's almost on-demand personalized nutrition for the infant. The milk and the components in it will change based on the baby's health, germ exposure, etc., through that content. And it's nothing that we could ever reproduce. Now, when I created infant formula for my adopted children, I had no choice other maybe than going to a La Leche League and, and, um, getting a donor, which would have been amazing too. I used 14 ingredients. I'm talking about raw liver powder and cod liver oil.

I remember the Weston Price, uh, yeah, this was a little different.

That was a great recipe, but I went further because I wanted only A2 dairy, and I used instead of lactose, I used this goat whey. So mine looked a little bit like a caramel macchiato, and they had a lot of fun in the airport security when they stopped me and made me taste it. Because at the time that was frowned upon to bring large glass bottles of infant formula with you. But it is amazing what God's creation is. And I, I was listening to a podcast that you recently did and a guest you had, and it talked about how barbaric medicine was with infants and how they would be kept in the hospital, healthy infants, for 10 to 14 days and almost always fed formula, even the mother's milk was prevalent, and you're immediately introducing an unhealthy dairy, likely allergen, or a soy allergen— two of the top allergens— in the form of dried processed formula. And that formula market is trillions of dollars worldwide, and I hope something changes there for sure.

Yeah, you know, one of the things I remember when those ads came out in, in articles, I remember reading articles saying Formula is as good or could be better than breast milk. Do you remember, remember when these were coming out, these articles, and thinking, I think this is a sign of something that goes much deeper or bigger than just the formula thing? It's that there are so many doctors, there are so many scientists, there are so many people who don't have God in their life, and because of it, they have a godlike complex. There's a pride with it. I mean, how, how, how true do you think that is? In terms of just this entire industry, the food industry, the pharmaceutical industry as a whole?

I would say this, and unfortunately, I've had to visit dozens of medical doctors, including osteopathic physicians, and then dozens more naturopathic doctors, chiropractors, and everyone in between. I would say that people join the medical movement to make a difference. but I think this is the case of boiling the frog slowly. I think that doctors today are part of a system that is very rigid, that is based on a broken insurance system, that is based on cramming certain treatments in, and if we wanna get into infant vaccinations, the schedule itself has multiplied, as have the number of vaccinations at an earlier age. I don't think someone becomes a pediatrician to enter into a broken system. Yeah, but at the same time, I see few and far between medical doctors truly digging into the research. They trust the system. And something common that I'll hear, and this is sad, if it was important to learn, I would have learned it in medical school. I have heard doctors say that These are well-meaning, God-fearing doctors who sacrificed a lot financially and with their time to become a doctor, and they're wearing a shiny light— shiny white lab coat, and they have certainly a position of authority, limited time to communicate with patients. And I'll be empathetic here, they've got more and more patients bringing them articles, books, and generally trying to think for themselves. You don't know how many times I've heard people say, with inflammatory bowel disease or some serious illness, I brought your book, Jordan, The Maker's Diet, to a doctor and he threw it across the room. Now most of them ignore it. Like, you probably hear that from people that you coach, that, oh, well, they just said it probably won't help. But do whatever you're doing, it's not gonna make a big difference. But I'm talking about 20 years ago. Oh yeah. Doctors would be angry because patients were coming in saying, you didn't tell me about diet. I have ulcerative colitis or Crohn's disease or celiac disease, where they mention a little bit of diet, and I'm now feeling a lot better. What do you think about this? And because industry Pharma-published science didn't speak to a mango or an avocado helping reduce inflammation, then they absolutely dismiss it. And so I think this is going to change. And you and I hang out with a lot of great doctors who are world changers and have bucked the system, but every one of them tells us the same thing, or about the same thing. They received 2 hours of nutrition training in medical school, and they wish they didn't because it wasn't worth anything. I'm not saying that I experienced this, but I'm hearing it from friends and colleagues that are medical doctors and DOs, etc. And that is so sad.

Yeah, I mean, and of course, across the board, there are some great doctors, a lot of great MDs, a lot of great DOs, DCs that, you know— and I know DCs, chiropractors, they get at least a couple full nutrition courses in school, so they have some level of knowledge. And it's really There's clubs, there are a lot of things to be able to learn that. But the MDs and DOs, a lot of them, you know, the best ones, they go and learn it themselves, right? I mean, people like whether it's Dr. Mark Hyman or others, I mean, they go and spend some time learning. And I remember when I was first in practice, I mean, there was almost no MDs talking about nutrition. Again, Hyman is about the only one I can think of. I mean, Dr. Rosen maybe is another. I mean, Dr. Oz, there's a few, but And now there's a lot more. I mean, there's a whole lot more. So I think we're moving in the right direction, which is really positive. Um, you know, one of the things, Jordan, I know that you've talked a lot about— we're writing a book on this in terms of biblical health, biblical nutrition— but this has been such a key part of your journey and your healing, of everything from overcoming Crohn's and colitis to years later healing from cancer. And so I would love to hear from you. You know, there are people out there today who I think first say, well, we need to embrace the science and just do whatever the latest scientific literature says. But you've always lived in this state of paying attention to medical journals. I mean, you can read medical journals and understand it better than probably 99% of the MDs out there. But also, you've always held fast to these principles of the Bible and of other forms of ancient medicine. Why is that?

I was blessed after a 2-year illness and 69 doctors, and I joke and say lawyers and Indian chiefs failing to help me get well. I say blessed because the one man who helped me told me that if I followed a health plan based on the Bible, I could be well. And I don't always talk about this part, but his name was Bud Keith. He passed away since, and he not only shared with me nutrition wisdom from the Bible, but he gave me 3 books to read and two of them are out of print or changed. One of them with a very long title was The Milk of Humankindness Is Not Pasteurized, and it was by an MD like you're referring to, William Campbell Douglas, pediatrician who had a more open mind to natural health. It was so interesting because during my illness, I remember trying to make yogurt based on what is called the Specific Carbohydrate Diet. So Elaine Gottschall was my personal nutritionist for a period of time. She worked with me for almost a year, and while that exact diet didn't help me, she taught me how to make 24-hour fermented yogurt. And I remember in San Diego when I was there visiting a doctor who— I'm not even gonna go into the therapy he was prescribing to me 'cause it was a little odd, but I went and bought milk, and my mom and I brought it home to make yogurt, and by accident we bought raw milk, and we were freaked out and went and returned it. And it's funny because a year later in San Diego, that's the only milk I wanted to buy. So we were falling prey to that bias, and my dad's a naturopathic doctor and a chiropractor, and we still fell for that. So I think when you understand the biblical principles, obviously Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and others who were shepherds consumed dairy, and they didn't pasteurize it.

It was raw.

They didn't boil it. And they didn't need to because dairy is so loaded with anti-infective enzymes, probiotics, et cetera.

Well, I mean, think about it. When our, you know, last year when our daughter had an eye infection, we used breast milk, right? I mean, that's what we use. Yes.

Yes, and I have seen adults do that when there's someone who's lactating around them, and it's absolutely amazing. So that was one book, and it made me understand how important raw dairy was. And I was in California at the time, so I could buy it. Mostly it was constantly in this battle of it's on the shelf, it's not on the shelf. Raw kefir, raw cream became a life source of nutrition to me. The other book was called God's Key to Health and Happiness. This was written by a pastor who had stomach cancer and went to scripture to see why, and God spoke to him and said, look to my prescription. So he found in Leviticus 11, Deuteronomy 14, there are certain meats that the Israelites were meant to eat and certain ones that they weren't. And the biblical definition actually was food or filth. So this gentleman stopped consuming pork and shellfish and started adhering to more of a biblically based diet when it pertained to meat. And he claimed to be cured of stomach cancer. And he went into all the stories from that time that he would learn from people where they had similar situations.

Now, what's the issue with pork and shellfish? Because I know that there's a lot of Christians who continue to eat these and some who don't, right? But in— what is your view in terms of the law, should— in terms of whether we should eat pork or shellfish or not?

Now I get a little bit of an unfair shake here because I'm Jewish, so I'm what you'd call a Messianic Jew, a Jewish believer. Pretty much you pick any path and I always have to go the opposite way. Like, it's not enough to be, you know, a health food eating kid in the '80s when everyone else ate Now or Later's Laffy Taffy and Hi-C Fruit Punch, but then I'm a Jewish person who also believes in Jesus, so everything I pretty much go against going against the grain. But this is not about sin. Let's separate that for just a moment. Now, I do believe that if you intentionally ate or consume poison and you knew it was poison, or if you jumped off a building, you are going against God's laws. And I believe you're going to die. And I would say it's a sin to harm your body intentionally, right? But getting into the— what you would call Old Testament laws, or what people call kosher laws, has been interesting for me. And I've done it for 20-some years, and I've never had a problem going head-on with it. But what I try to do is separate the law and sin versus God's creation and physiology, because the truth of the matter is pigs, shellfish, and let's go with dogs, cats, and skunks, because those are all animals.

Yeah.

Those animals are not meant to be eaten. They're meant to grab waste from the environment, store it, and then they die. They're not waste removal systems. They are garbage cans. So if you look at a pig or a dog or a cat or a skunk, and you might say no one would ever eat a dog, cat, or skunk— they do in other countries. But particularly, we are infatuated with pork, and so are European countries. I've noticed, particularly Italy. A pig has a structure that is similar to a human, and that is a monogastric— it has one stomach. Whereas the animals God says to eat in Leviticus 11, Deuteronomy 14, that are land animals— I'm talking about ruminants or large animals— cow, goat, sheep, buffalo, et cetera, they have a 4-chamber stomach where they can chew the cud or the grass, digest it, and become powerful, well-muscled animals. Whereas pigs will eat anything. They'll eat other pigs, they'll eat poop. Let's, uh, look at the saying, as happy as a pig in poop. Why would a pig be happy in poop? Pigs and their flesh harbor parasites. And people say, well, what about grass-fed and organic pigs? Unless you're watching them for 24/7, they're not going to be organic.

But here's what I got to tell you. So my cousin in chiropractic school, he went on a wild boar hunt, so caught wild boar. He started— he made sausage from it. He was eating it every— I mean, he ate it like every morning with eggs for about 28 days. Well, at the end of 4 weeks, he started getting these yellow lesions all over his back, all over his body. Had a major parasitic infection from from, from wild, again, wild grass-fed pig.

So the trichinae worm is very hard to kill no matter how high you heat the pork. And I know that there are certain people in the natural health movement that we trust, including— you mentioned the Weston A. Price Foundation, which has been amazing, and Sally Fallon, who's done pioneering work. She and I have argued in a friendly way about that I just simply believe that God created those things as filth and not food. Shellfish is the same. When you de— you know, vein a shrimp, that's their digestive tract and all those toxins. Scallops in a body of water float to the top when there's toxicity. That's how you measure toxicity. We've heard of lots of disease outbreaks with mussels and clams. I know they're delicacies to people.

Here's the other thing, if you go go and look at the studies, if we were to go and look at, okay, what's the dirtiest animal in the sea? It's shrimp. I mean, there are studies on this in terms of what collects toxins, and it's shrimp. And so I wrote an article on this in the past in terms of just how dirty they are, the dioxins, all the toxins they store.

Heavy metals.

So, yeah, so the science proves it today as well, that these animals, In terms of the greatest parasite carriers on the planet, they're pigs. So, so anyways, I'm very in line with that. You know, I, I actually stopped eating pork and shellfish after reading your book, The Maker's Diet. Like, what this was, was probably back in 2005, almost 20, which is kind of crazy to think about, almost 20 years ago now.

Yeah, and that was definitely controversial, but I always tried to stay on this side of the fence where God calls our body a temple multiple times in 1 Corinthians, including 6:19. He says, do you not know your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit? Spirit of God dwells in you, therefore honor God with your body and your spirit. And it is related to sexual purity, but it shouldn't extend there, because what we do, how we treat our bodies, is going to make an impact on this planet if we believe we're here to spread the good news. So I repeat what a pastor friend of ours will say: you can break God's commandments, but if you try, they'll end up breaking you. And I believe certain things that were part of God's plan, that he made his people separate from the world, involve protecting them. And that brings me to the third of the three books that I read upon getting this revelation from Bud Keith to follow a biblical way of eating and living. It's called None of These diseases. Nothing to do with food at all. It is all about hygiene and how by following God's hygienic principles, we were able to increase mortality— um, I should say decrease mortality, particularly infant mortality— increase longevity. And there were literally doctors that were exiled, they were imprisoned for things as as simple as, hey, maybe you shouldn't examine a cadaver in the pathology lab right before delivering a baby without washing your hands. It talked about how the bubonic plague could have been avoided by using the waste management principles in the Bible, which is bury your waste outside the camp and bury it to a certain depth. There was sewage floating through the streets in the Middle Ages in Europe, which killed hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people. So these simple principles— it went into things like circumcision. This is, I guess, a hot topic, or it used to be. It still is. Vitamin K injections for babies versus circumcision and non-circumcision. God had a plan to circumcise on the 8th day. Now we know Abraham was circumcised a lot later than that, and some others been, but circumcision is perfectly done on the 8th day without a vitamin K injection because that's the day when your body produces enough vitamin K to clot the blood properly. But because of the medical system, they're giving you lots of immunizations and they're giving you a vitamin K shot so they can circumcise the boys at day 1, 2, or 3 because of the system, the time, the reimbursements, the insurance. These are principles that God set forth thousands of years ago, not dissimilar to principles that indigenous cultures have passed down for years, such as when you eat an animal, eat the organs, or make a soup out of the bones. Or they would know that certain parts of animals or plants were beneficial for certain conditions. This wisdom is not only handed down, but in the Bible it's written in there if you look closely enough.

You know, I remember going and looking this up. I was teaching like a Bible study years ago and talking about food and the number of references about food in the Old Testament and the number of references about agriculture and food in the New Testament. It's like referenced more than anything else in the entire Bible. I mean, so food and agriculture were a key component of everyday life. I mean, people were very conscious of it.. And I think today, I'm glad that we're starting to see more and more of an emphasis on eating quality food. It's so, it's so interesting. You know, if we were to tell, if we were to re-get sort of the Ten Commandments, like the food laws today, you know, and one of us were in this place of Moses, it's, you know, the list would be much longer. Can you imagine how long this list would be? It'd be like food dyes and BHT and glyphosate. And I mean, it would be like Million, thousands long. I mean, it would be pretty, pretty long list.

It would at least be a thousand because there are a thousand plus chemicals that are banned in Europe that are available here in the U.S. for food and skin care. You know, I, I think when it comes to a biblical way of eating, you can argue on theology, you can say that all foods were declared clean in the New Testament, which that part of the scripture was actually added later to the verse that says, what goes into a man's mouth does not make him unclean, but what comes out of a man's mouth. And it was really talking about how powerful our words are, which you and I write about, talk about, agree with. That one line has given many, many Christians the supposed freedom to eat whatever they want. But the truth of the matter is, that's not part of God's plan, and we need to do a little bit thinking and understanding what food is, why it was created, and how it can nourish us. And we need to be responsible with it. One of the biggest issues, Josh, is not simply that a bunch of companies make addictive foods loaded with bad fats, lots of sugar or high fructose corn syrup, excess amounts of poor quality sodium, and the list goes on and on. It's the fact that we use food or celebrate it as too much import in our life. And I'm guilty of it too. Right before we got on the air, I was telling you that I just took my family to True Food Kitchen and was excited about some of the new menu items. And obviously that's a health food restaurant, but I am as guilty as many where I love to celebrate around food. My wife's birthday is tomorrow, and tonight we're having a really nice carne asada, and we'll have a dessert, but it'll be made with whole grains, if not sourdough, and raw dairy ice cream. But point is, I celebrate food. The difference is, and I know you do, I know what food will nourish me. But even if I went out and had a dessert with 50 grams of coconut sugar in it, I'm still not going to feel as good the next day. I still have to be intentional about what I eat. I know for a fact that the shot of all— of extra virgin olive oil from the Greek islands that I can consume is going to be better than the dessert that we make for one of our kids' birthdays, right? So we have to find a way to make food less important in our lives. And I don't have a great way to do that other than helping people understand that when you eat foods that are nourishing most of the time, then you earn the opportunity to eat healthy but higher sugar higher fat, higher calorie desserts and yummy things for celebration. And they certainly did that in the Bible, but they celebrated with the fatted calf and— yeah, healthy dairy. They just didn't have what we have today, and that's really tricky.

Well, I think one of the things that sort of brings this awareness of how important food to us is fasting, right? I mean, that's, that's one of the things. And I think that's why when you look at these, you know, themes in the Bible, we're seeing a lot of feasting and a lot of fasting around certain times of year. And I think fasting— and by the way, you're, you're the first person I think I, I probably ever, yeah, did a fast with, or, or did a long fast with. I mean, by the way, Jordan and I, I did a fast back in— would that, would that have been, uh, 2012?

10, 11, 12? I think it was— losing track of time.

I think it was 2012, and I did a fast And I don't have that. I mean, I lost probably 14 or 15 pounds in 21 days. We did a Daniel Fast with no salt, and all we did was eat pulse, which was vegetables and nuts and seeds and that sort of thing, and fruit. And, um, and so anyways, you know, fasting is really just an amazing, um, you know, can be an amazing cleansing and healing practice that, that's not really done very much today at all. In fact, I would say of all the things talked about in the Bible that are not still done today as probably are the early church fathers did, or the apostles, or even in the Old Testament, those, the prophets and priests and people there. Fasting is probably the practice that is done the least. It's hard.

It's hard.

Yeah.

And I don't want people typing, give me that information quickly. But I am going to correct you, Josh, you lost I lost 17 pounds in 10 days.

Oh, you might be right.

It was a 10-day Daniel Fast, and 3 of us, our friends— Dr. Pete Sulak's another one— we lost like 17, 19, and 17 pounds respectively. The crazy part is we were eating every day. It wasn't like we weren't eating. Yeah, it just goes to show that when you understand what to eat, you restrict certain things, you can rapidly change your metabolism. But fasting is something that requires discipline. And that is why I think it became popular today to fast, in part the intermittent fasting or time-restricted eating, but so much so that now people are going against it and saying that it can cause some health challenges, etc., because fasting without knowledge or understanding how to prepare for it or come off of a fast fast can actually be difficult.

Well, we need to think about this. So when people are fasting in the Bible, there is a level of during that time, whether it be doing— we've talked about this— whether it be doing a 10-day fast, 21-day fast, 3-day fast, or like some of the early church fathers did and the Jews that we talked about, some of them just took a day a week and fasted till dinner, you know. But what other thing is happening at that time is they're spending more time with God, spending more time with their family oftentimes. There is less stress during that time. So what people are doing today sometimes with fasting, it's like they're hyper-stressed out, they're not sleeping, and then they're throwing in a way another form of something that could be stressful for some, or less stress for others, but still stressful. So I think that there's, there's a way of, you know, when God tells someone to fast in the Bible, it's not just to— it's not to just lose weight. It's to, I think, see more of a— and have a greater I mean, here, when I fasted, let me just say this: I realized how dependent I was on food and that I was not dependent enough on God. That was my biggest takeaway.

Well, the Bible says, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. And I don't think we truly understand what that means unless we are desperate, and then we're hungering and thirsting for God to answer our prayer. Or when we fast— fasting changes your perspective on everything. And I remember I did a 5-day water fast, my longest ever. I am not great at doing a continuous fast, and I broke the fast by eating a handful of raspberries prior to a large salad. And I remember eating every individual raspberry. I will never forget what that first raspberry tasted like because all I had was water, and that was the most delicious, amazing thing that God had ever created. Today I have been practicing intermittent fasting or time-restricted eating for 27 years before it was called intermittent fasting, and I find for me it works great. For example, I haven't had anything this morning other than water, and I had a little clay in my water. It's an episode you talked about, and some probiotics. I had some, some ocean minerals, and then I'll— I drink a tea made of fruit tree leaves. So that's all I've had. And I am here in the studio, then I'm driving 3 hours, and I probably won't eat today till 2, 3, or 4 o'clock. Here's the deal, I'm doing just fine. I have energy, I'm clear-headed, and if you ask me, are you hungry? I'm not truly hungry. Could I eat? Certainly. So I've built up a resilience where I'm not dependent on eating every couple of hours, and I did it intentionally because, A, I want to rest my digestive system, I want to repair, and I started just the way you said where I would take a day and not eat until dinner. A 24-hour fast is difficult because if you truly do that, um, you know, you're done eating dinner at 6, you can't eat till 6 the next day. But some people say, I fasted for a day, and it's really a 36-hour fast. Because they don't eat till the next morning. So, but if you do a 22-hour fast from dinner to dinner, that's still amazing. And in fact, the longest fast I've been able to follow, my wife and I went on a 50-day fast where I ate for 1 hour a day, we both did. And at day 50, I started to get weak. And then probably the last few, I spent half of my day planning on what I was gonna eat for my 1 hour, buying it. Preparing it, dreaming about it. So eventually you sort of lose the purpose. But Isaiah 58 talks very highly about the benefits of fasting. It talks about breaking addictions, loosing the bonds of wickedness. It talks about your healing springing forth. It talks about your ability to understand people that are less fortunate than you and, and provide for them. It's a great book of the Bible. If you want to read it, it's in part an amazing— I'll say a story about how fasting could be such a blessing. So I do think fasting is great for your physical health, for your spiritual health, and I truly believe everybody should practice some form of fasting consistently. Like you mentioned, in the early church they fasted— well, this wasn't even the early church, this was the Jewish leaders who Jesus— they did said, 'Woe to you,' he said, 'you fast twice a week and you tithe dill, mint, and cumin,' which meant two things. They fasted twice a week, and they also valued herbs and spices, which they must have consumed regularly. So honestly, look, if we take a step back and say that is one Bible passage, and if you will consume more herbs and spices in your diet and fast twice a week, I guarantee your health health will improve low double digits. Oh yeah. And that's just one principle out of the Bible. We have a new book coming out next August, and we're going to release revelation that I would say hasn't been brought to people for thousands of years. These are health secrets from the Bible that are going to set people free. I know it's a little bit of a tease. We're going to come back and talk about that. But imagine one Bible verse: eat more herbs and spices and fast twice a week. I feel like people will be more likely to have better metabolism, better ideal weight, and they're going to have more antioxidants. Those herbs and spices, mint, dill, and cumin, are great for the brain, great for the gut, great for the immune system. That's from one passage of the Bible. Imagine if we follow it all.

It's amazing. It's so amazing. Well, Jordan, I've loved talking. Next time I have you on— well, I have a couple other things that I want to get into, uh, next time. One, I want to talk about— I want to do a whole episode just on cancer. And how you overcame cancer. I want to do one on just a biblical diet here in the future as well. But it's been a great conversation and just want to say, everybody, thanks so much for tuning in here. Jordan and I do have a book coming out together. We're co-authoring. It'll be next August and we're incredibly excited about it. There'll be a lot of churches who are going to be doing church programs with it, and we have some amazing pastors and other people that are going to be involved in the project. And so we really believe that a biblical diet is the ultimate diet to help you heal. And, uh, it helped Jordan reverse and heal his Crohn's disease, colitis, irritable bowel disease, and has helped thousands, maybe millions of other people heal as well. And so we'll get into more of that in the future as well. But I want to say, hey, thanks so much for tuning in here to the Dr. Josh Axe Show, where each and every week we dive deep into the science and principles behind how to grow in body, mind, spirit, and take your health and your life to the next level. Hey, if you enjoyed this episode, make sure to share it. There are millions of people that don't know that following a biblical diet can help them heal, and Jordan has been the world's leading expert on that. So again, thanks so much for subscribing. Thanks so much for sharing. We'll see you on the next episode.