Top 10 Bible Foods That Heal: The Biblical Superfoods, Ranked

Fish is the food Jesus ate after the resurrection: "And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb. And he took it, and did eat before them" (Luke 24:42–43).2 It's an amazing food to get into your diet because of its omega-3 fats, its protein and antioxidants like astaxanthin, found in wild salmon.1 On my map of the nine hallmarks of aging, fish helps with altered cellular communication, epigenetic switches, mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative stress and inflammaging.1

Across 34 meta-analyses of 298 cohort studies, each extra 100 grams of fish a day was linked to 8% lower risk of dying from any cause, 25% lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, 20% lower risk of heart failure and 12% lower risk of depression.9 A 100-gram serving of cooked sockeye salmon carries about 26.5 grams of protein and 0.86 grams of the omega-3 fats EPA and DHA,10 and 100 grams of canned sardines with the bones add 382 milligrams of calcium.11

Those fats show up in your blood. Among 2,240 Framingham adults in their mid-60s followed for 11 years, people with the highest Omega-3 Index, a blood test of the omega-3s in your red blood cells, were predicted to live about 4.74 years longer than people with the lowest, almost exactly the 4.73 years that separated nonsmokers from smokers.12

I want you eating more fish, not less: about 8 to 12 ounces a week of wild-caught fish like sockeye salmon, king salmon and sardines.131 When my mom was recovering from cancer through nutrition and lifestyle alongside her medical care, wild-caught salmon was one of the foods on her plate.8 In The Biblio Diet, the standard is wild, ocean-caught fish with fins and scales (Leviticus 11:9), so shellfish, catfish and eel stay off the plate.5 Farmed salmon carries a worse omega-3 to omega-6 balance than wild, so I choose wild when I can.13

Pomegranates grew in the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 8:8), and they were woven into Israel's worship: "a golden bell and a pomegranate" alternated around the hem of the high priest's robe (Exodus 28:34), and hundreds of brass pomegranates crowned the pillars of Solomon's temple (1 Kings 7:15, 7:20, 7:42).2

Pomegranate's strongest human research is on blood pressure. Across 8 placebo-controlled trials, pomegranate juice lowered systolic blood pressure by about 5 points (4.96 mmHg) and diastolic pressure by about 2.14 The result I highlighted when I ranked these foods shows up in the arteries themselves.1 In a small study of 10 people with narrowed carotid arteries, a year of pomegranate juice thinned the artery wall by up to 30%, while it thickened 9% in a comparison group that didn't drink the juice, and the juice drinkers' total antioxidant status rose 130%.15 In a larger trial of 289 adults at moderate heart risk, in which neither the people nor the researchers knew who got what, the group as a whole showed no difference, but in the people with the most oxidative stress and the worst triglyceride-to-HDL balance, up to 18 months of juice slowed the thickening of the artery wall.16

The fruit's deep red color comes from polyphenols, and in lab testing, commercial juice pressed from the whole fruit showed about three times the antioxidant activity of red wine or green tea.17 Gut bacteria turn some of those compounds into urolithin A, which activates mitophagy, the recycling of worn-out mitochondria, in studies of the purified compound.18 In a randomized study of 100 healthy adults, funded by a urolithin A supplement maker, about 40% of those who drank a glass of pomegranate juice turned its compounds into significant amounts of urolithin A, and the people who did had more diverse gut bacteria.19 That fits my hallmarks map, where pomegranate's marks are microbiome dysbiosis and impaired autophagy.1

Choose whole arils first; about half a cup to one cup a day is a sensible amount, and if you drink juice, keep it to a small unsweetened serving.20 Stir the arils into kefir or yogurt, which I've called one of the best combos you could ever have.1

Olive oil was food, medicine and anointing oil in Scripture. The psalmist praised God for "oil to make his face to shine" (Psalm 104:15), and James told the sick to call the elders and let them pray, "anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord" (James 5:14).2 As I've said on my show, the Bible, today's research and Chinese medicine all point to one oil above all, and it's extra virgin olive oil.21

In PREDIMED, a randomized trial of 7,447 Spanish adults at high cardiovascular risk, a Mediterranean diet supplemented with extra virgin olive oil lowered a combined measure of heart attack, stroke and cardiovascular death by about 30% over a median of 4.8 years.22 In a U.S. cohort of 92,383 adults followed for 28 years, people who used more than half a tablespoon a day had 19% lower risk of death from any cause than people who rarely or never used it, along with 19% lower cardiovascular, 17% lower cancer, 18% lower respiratory and 29% lower neurodegenerative death; swapping olive oil in for butter, margarine, mayonnaise or dairy fat was linked to 8% to 34% lower risk, though against other plant oils combined the difference wasn't significant.3 The peppery sting a fresh oil leaves at the back of your throat comes from oleocanthal, a compound that, in lab testing, blocks the same COX enzymes ibuprofen does.23

Olive oil is the fat you can use most liberally: about 2 to 4 tablespoons a day, in place of other fats.1 Keep tallow to small amounts, since it isn't an ideal fat for heart health or fatty liver disease. Buy olive oil with a harvest date, in a dark bottle, with an herbaceous, peppery taste and ideally higher polyphenols.1 I believe it's the healthiest oil you can use for cooking, and you can use it on everything.241

Figs are number 4 and one of the foods I like best,1 and Scripture shows them as medicine as well as food. When King Hezekiah was "sick unto death," God promised him, "I will add unto thy days fifteen years," and Isaiah's instruction was, "Let them take a lump of figs, and lay it for a plaister upon the boil, and he shall recover" (Isaiah 38:1, 38:5, 38:21).2

Dried figs carry about 10 grams of fiber per 100 grams (9.8 grams, against 7.1 in prunes), along with 680 milligrams of potassium, 162 milligrams of calcium and 68 milligrams of magnesium.2526 Figs have also been tested directly. In a placebo-controlled trial of 80 Korean adults with constipation, 300 grams of fig paste a day for 8 weeks sped the movement of stool through the colon and improved stool form and abdominal discomfort.27 In a single-blind randomized trial of 150 adults with constipation-predominant IBS, split among figs, flixweed and a control group, 4 months of dried figs eased how often pain struck, bloating and hard stools, and improved quality of life, though pain severity didn't change significantly.28 A 2026 analysis of 12 trials ranked whole fruits such as figs first among functional foods for IBS-C pain and quality of life.29

Eat them fresh in season or dried year-round. A bowl of goat milk kefir with figs, walnuts and a little raw honey makes a biblical breakfast.1

When three visitors came to Abraham's tent, "Abraham ran unto the herd, and fetcht a calf tender and good," and he set it before them with butter and milk (Genesis 18:7–8). The clean animals of the law begin with "the ox, the sheep, and the goat" (Deuteronomy 14:4).2 That means lamb, beef or even venison, grass-fed.1

Muscle is your body's longevity organ, and after age 30 you lose 3% to 8% of it every decade.130 Red meat helps feed it. A 100-gram serving of lean roast lamb supplies about 28 grams of protein, 5 milligrams of zinc, 2 milligrams of iron and 2.7 micrograms of vitamin B12, more than a full day's B12.31 Grass-fed beef carries more omega-3s, 2 to 3 times the CLA and about three times the vitamin E of grain-fed beef, according to a review of three decades of research.32 Lean beef fits a heart-healthy plate too: in a randomized trial of 36 adults with elevated LDL cholesterol, funded by the beef industry, each person tried every diet for 5 weeks, and a low-saturated-fat diet with 113 grams of lean beef a day lowered LDL about as much as the DASH diet.33

I'm a much bigger fan of lean red meat than fatty for most people, with more of your fat coming from olive oil, walnuts, pumpkin seeds and avocados.1 Choose grass-fed beef, lamb, bison and venison, fresh and unprocessed, and let animal meat supply about half of your protein, as The Biblio Diet recommends.5

"My son, eat thou honey, because it is good; and the honeycomb, which is sweet to thy taste" (Proverbs 24:13). God promised Israel "a land flowing with milk and honey" (Exodus 3:8), and John the Baptist lived on "locusts and wild honey" (Matthew 3:4).2

Honey should be your number one sweetener,34 and the research gives good reasons. In a University of Toronto meta-analysis of 18 controlled trials with 1,105 people, a median 40 grams of honey a day (about 2 tablespoons) for 8 weeks raised HDL cholesterol by about 2.7 mg/dL, the review's most certain finding, and lowered fasting blood sugar, LDL cholesterol, triglycerides and the liver enzyme ALT. Raw honey and single-flower honeys showed the clearest benefits for blood sugar and cholesterol, and most of the comparisons were with people's usual diet.35

Cochrane reviewers found that honey dressings healed partial-thickness burns about 4.7 days faster than conventional dressings, rated high-quality evidence, and that honey eased children's coughs with results similar to the cough medicine dextromethorphan.3637 Part of honey's wound-healing action comes from glucose oxidase, an enzyme in honey that releases small amounts of hydrogen peroxide.38

The key with honey is to eat it, but not too much.1 It's a far superior option to cane sugar, and as the Bible says, even honey should be used sparingly: "It is not good to eat much honey" (Proverbs 25:27).2 Buy raw, local or high-quality manuka honey, and use it to replace other sweeteners rather than add to them.1

At the first Passover, God told Israel to eat the lamb "roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it" (Exodus 12:8).2 Scripture doesn't name the plants. Good bitter foods to eat in that spirit include lettuce, endive, chicory, horseradish, dandelion, arugula and watercress.1

Leafy greens are linked to a slower-aging brain. In a cohort of 960 older adults followed for about 4.7 years, those who ate the most green leafy vegetables, a median of 1.3 servings a day, had slower cognitive decline, equal to being about 11 years younger, than those who ate the least.39

The bitterness itself does something, too. I value bitter foods because tasting bitter gets bile flowing, and your body needs bile to absorb vitamins A, D, E and K.1 Bitter taste receptors also line your gut, and when bitter compounds reach them, gut cells release GLP-1 and CCK, hormones that signal fullness.40 In a placebo-controlled trial of 19 men, in which each man took both the extract and a placebo, a bitter hop extract taken in capsules raised those hormones after lunch, and the men ate about 17% fewer calories at lunch and an afternoon snack, though the capsules brought some stomach discomfort, such as nausea and bloating.41 Build a big salad of arugula, endive and radicchio, or sauté bitter greens like broccoli rabe in olive oil and garlic.1

When Aaron's rod budded in the tabernacle, it "bloomed blossoms, and yielded almonds" (Numbers 17:8), and when Jacob sent gifts down to Egypt, he chose "a little balm, and a little honey, spices, and myrrh, nuts, and almonds" (Genesis 43:11).2 The nuts on the list are walnuts, almonds and pistachios, plus pumpkin seeds.1

If you're choosing between nuts and seeds, walnuts are probably the single best you can do.42 They carry about 2.5 grams of plant omega-3 fat per ounce.43 In a 2-year randomized trial of 708 older adults, with nut-industry funding, eating 30 to 60 grams of walnuts a day lowered LDL cholesterol by 4.3 mg/dL compared with eating none.44 In PREDIMED, a Mediterranean diet with 30 grams of mixed nuts a day lowered the same combined measure of heart attack, stroke and cardiovascular death by about 28%.22 And in two Harvard cohorts of 118,962 women and men, partly funded by a tree-nut research foundation, people who ate nuts seven or more times a week had 20% lower risk of death over up to 30 years than people who ate none.4

Keep your servings to about a handful a day, especially if you're working on your weight.51

In the wilderness, Israel looked back on Egypt's table: "We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick" (Numbers 11:5).2 It's the one verse in the King James Bible that names all three.

Other than rare situations, every person should eat garlic, about 2 to 5 grams, or one medium clove, a day.5 In a meta-analysis of 20 trials of garlic preparations such as garlic powder and aged garlic extract, blood pressure fell by 5.1/2.5 mmHg overall and by 8.7/6.1 mmHg in the trials of people with high blood pressure.45 In a year-long placebo-controlled trial of 55 adults with metabolic syndrome, funded by the extract's maker, 2,400 milligrams a day of aged garlic extract shrank the soft plaque in their coronary arteries by 1.5%, while it grew 0.2% on placebo, though total plaque volume didn't differ significantly.46 Onions bring quercetin, and in a placebo-controlled trial of 70 adults, in which each person took both the extract and a placebo, an onion-skin extract supplying 162 milligrams of quercetin a day lowered 24-hour systolic blood pressure by 3.9 points more than placebo in the participants who had high blood pressure.47

If your digestion is sensitive, go easy on raw garlic, since eating it raw all the time can bother a weak digestive lining.48 Crush or chop it and add it to your cooking.

"And thou shalt have goats’ milk enough for thy food, for the food of thy household" (Proverbs 27:27), and Abraham served "butter, and milk" with the calf he set before his guests (Genesis 18:8).2 Number 10 is fermented dairy, typically cultured goat milk or cultured sheep milk.1

The best dairy products are the lacto-fermented kind, like yogurt, kefir, hard cheeses and cultured cream, ideally full-fat, A2 and, when you have a trusted local farm, raw,5 and yogurt and kefir are my top two probiotic foods.49 In a randomized Stanford trial of 36 healthy adults, the 18 assigned to fermented foods built up to about six servings a day of foods such as yogurt, kefir and kimchi; over 10 weeks their gut-microbe diversity rose and 19 inflammatory proteins fell, including IL-6, though the study's main immune-response score didn't change.50 Fermentation also uses up lactose. In 15 adults who digest lactose poorly, plain kefir and yogurt made from cow's milk cut breath hydrogen by more than half compared with milk and eased gas by 54% to 71%.51

Goats and sheep make only A2 casein, so if cow's milk bothers you, sheep milk yogurt or goat cheese may sit better.1 I tolerate goat's milk in small amounts pretty well, but I don't do as well with cow's milk.1