You might think a guy who brainstorms with Tarot cards is possessed of some pretty strange ideas … but, frankly, the folks publishing The Maker’s Diet have got me beat by a mile.
On today’s broadcast of Good Morning America, Diane Sawyer conducted a slack-jawed, touchy-feely, non-confrontational interview with Jordan Rubin, the book’s author. During the interview, he recommended the diet on the following basis:
1. Those folks in Bible stories lived for more than a hundred years, so they had to be doin’ something right. Rubin also claimed Biblical personages didn’t suffer from any of the diseases we equate with aging … but he conveniently neglected to provide any evidence supporting this particular assertion (nor did Diane ask for any).
Diane didn’t explore whether Biblical ages might have been symbolic … or merely exaggerated. She also didn’t ask Rubin why modern Jews keeping strict kosher diets (based on the same laws) aren’t proving to be immune to the ravages of disease and time.
2. These are the foods approved by the Old Testament holiness code, so they must be what God intended. I noticed at least some foods approved by the holiness code — locusts, for example — didn’t figure too prominently in the menus he promoted this morning.
Diane did worry aloud that the pork industry might protest Rubin’s claim that pork is tainted and impure. She didn’t bother, though, to follow Rubin’s claims to their logical conclusions.
Namely: if the dietary portion of the holiness code is best for us today, why wouldn’t the other portions of Old Testament law — which dictate second class citizenship for women, which forbid sex during a woman’s period, or which demand that parents must stone to death daughters who lose their virginity prior to marriage — also be considered the best possible courses of action?
3. These are all foods God created. Amazingly, Diane never asked the obvious question: So who made all these other foods?
4. This diet plan is 4,000 years old. You know, they did a lot of things 4,000 years ago … but I’m not sold on the idea of using antiquity as a measure of validity. Take slavery, for example — very popular in the ancient world. Frankly? An oldie ain’t always a goodie.
As an author, I admire Rubin’s ability to write a book that will earn him placement on a national morning show … and that will, no doubt, shoot up the best seller lists. (When I checked Amazon.com today, his book was holding steady at number 19.)
As a human being, though, I shudder to think about the shallow thinking, backward-looking logic, and pure, unadulterated, sucker-born-every-minute quasi-religious hokum that folks like Rubin are foisting on the largely uncritical masses.
And shame on you, Diane, for not calling him on it.
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