The Maker’s Diet is a 40-day eating plan created by Jordan Rubin, a naturopathic doctor and entrepreneur who based the program on biblical dietary laws and his own recovery from Crohn’s disease. The diet emphasizes organic, unprocessed foods, draws heavily from Old Testament food guidelines, and includes lifestyle practices like fasting, prayer, and specific hygiene habits. It gained popularity through Rubin’s 2004 book, which became a bestseller in faith-based health circles.
Who Created It and Why
Jordan Rubin developed the Maker’s Diet after a severe bout of Crohn’s disease in his late teens and early twenties left him dangerously underweight. He credits his recovery to a combination of prayer, whole foods, and soil-based probiotic supplements. That personal story became the foundation of the diet and also of his supplement company, Garden of Life, which sold products tied to the program’s principles.
The core idea is that foods described as acceptable in the Bible, particularly in the book of Leviticus, represent the optimal human diet. Rubin argued that modern processed foods, environmental toxins, and sedentary lifestyles are the root of most chronic disease, and that returning to “the Creator’s” dietary blueprint would restore health. The plan blends kosher-style food rules (no pork, no shellfish, no catfish) with modern wellness trends like organic produce, raw dairy, and fermented foods.
How the 40-Day Plan Works
The diet is structured in three phases, each lasting about two weeks. The phases gradually expand what you can eat, starting restrictive and loosening over time.
Phase 1 is the most limited. It cuts out grains, sugar, starchy vegetables, and most processed foods. The focus is on organic meats, wild-caught fish (only those with fins and scales), raw or cultured dairy like yogurt and kefir, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and certain oils like extra-virgin coconut oil and olive oil. One day per week involves a partial fast.
Phase 2 reintroduces some foods that were off-limits, including certain whole grains and a wider range of fruits. The weekly fast continues.
Phase 3 is meant to be a long-term maintenance plan. Most whole, unprocessed foods are allowed, but the program still prohibits pork, shellfish, and highly processed items permanently. The fasting protocol remains in place.
Throughout all three phases, the diet recommends specific supplements, including probiotics made from soil-based organisms, digestive enzymes, and green food blends. It also prescribes “cleansing” protocols and encourages practices like deep breathing, sun exposure, and avoiding certain household chemicals.
What You Actually Eat
On a typical day during the strictest phase, meals revolve around eggs, grass-fed beef or lamb, wild salmon, leafy greens, avocados, almonds, and fermented vegetables. Cooking fats are limited to coconut oil, butter from grass-fed cows, and olive oil. Beverages are water, herbal tea, and raw vegetable juices. There’s no bread, pasta, rice, cereal, beans, or sugar in Phase 1.
By Phase 3, you can add sprouted grain bread, honey, a wider range of fruits, and some legumes. But the permanent restrictions on pork and shellfish stay, along with a blanket avoidance of anything artificial, hydrogenated, or heavily refined. The overall food quality is high: the diet pushes organic, pasture-raised, and wild-caught at every turn, which does make it more expensive than a conventional grocery list.
The Lifestyle Component
The Maker’s Diet is not just about food. It includes a set of lifestyle recommendations that go well beyond nutrition. Rubin advocated for practices like “climatizing,” or exposing yourself to outdoor temperatures rather than relying on heating and air conditioning. He recommended avoiding fluoridated water, reducing exposure to electromagnetic fields, and getting direct sunlight regularly.
The spiritual component is central to the program. Daily prayer, meditation on scripture, and gratitude practices are woven into the 40-day timeline. For followers who share Rubin’s faith-based worldview, this integration of diet and devotion is the main appeal. For others, it can feel prescriptive or out of scope for a nutrition plan.
What Dietitians Say About It
Nutrition professionals have been largely skeptical. Victoria Shanta-Retelny, a registered dietitian at Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s Wellness Institute, called the plan “gimmicky” and specifically flagged the weekly fasting as potentially risky for people with conditions like diabetes. She also noted that the supplements and cleansing agents the diet promotes “are not necessary if you are eating a healthy diet and not eliminating food groups that are high in fiber, vitamins, and minerals.”
The diet’s heavy reliance on coconut oil drew particular criticism. Coconut oil is 92% saturated fat, the type associated with increased cardiovascular risk, and Shanta-Retelny pointed out that the nutrition literature does not support marketing it as a “healthier oil.” The diet’s insistence on organic produce also raised eyebrows. Ruth Kava, a nutrition director at the American Council on Science and Health, said there is no data suggesting organic produce is nutritionally superior, though it is consistently more expensive.
Kava also questioned the diet’s foundational claim that biblical populations enjoyed exceptional health: “I don’t know how he knows that from the Bible.” She acknowledged that some of the plan’s advice, like regular handwashing, is perfectly reasonable, but said Rubin also “picked up on a lot of the faddy, crazy things about modern lifestyles,” such as fear of electromagnetic fields and fluoride.
Because the diet is partly based on kosher food laws, Shanta-Retelny suggested it might fit more naturally for people already practicing Orthodox Jewish dietary customs, but she would not recommend it to the general population.
The FTC Settlement
The diet’s credibility took a significant hit in 2006. The Federal Trade Commission charged Rubin and his company, Garden of Life, with making unsubstantiated claims that their supplements could treat or cure a range of conditions, from colds and arthritis to cancer and chronic lymphocytic leukemia. The FTC also alleged that claims of clinical proof for several products were false, including a claim that one supplement reduced blood cholesterol by 25% or more.
Garden of Life and Rubin settled the charges, paying $225,000 in consumer redress. The potential judgment was far larger: more than $47 million, representing total gross sales of the four targeted supplements. As part of the settlement, the company was prohibited from making similar health claims without competent, reliable scientific evidence.
What the Diet Gets Right and Wrong
Some elements of the Maker’s Diet align with mainstream nutrition advice. Eating more vegetables, reducing processed food, choosing whole grains over refined ones, and incorporating fermented foods are all well-supported strategies. The emphasis on cooking at home with whole ingredients is sound. If someone follows the plan and moves from a diet heavy in fast food and sugar to one centered on vegetables, quality proteins, and healthy fats, they will likely feel better and may lose weight.
The problems are in the specifics and the framing. There is no scientific basis for the claim that biblical food laws represent optimal nutrition. The blanket prohibition on pork and shellfish has cultural and religious significance, but shrimp, mussels, and lean pork are nutritious foods with no health-based reason for elimination. The weekly fasting, the expensive supplement regimen, and the pseudoscientific lifestyle claims (avoiding electromagnetic fields, rejecting fluoride) push the plan away from evidence-based nutrition and toward ideology. The FTC action against Rubin’s supplement company further undercuts the trustworthiness of the product recommendations that are baked into the program.
For people drawn to the spiritual framework, the Maker’s Diet offers a structured way to combine faith and health habits. As a nutrition plan evaluated on its scientific merits alone, it mixes some genuinely helpful dietary changes with unproven restrictions, unnecessary supplements, and health claims that federal regulators have found to be unsubstantiated.