Entry #075: Don Colbert

Don Colbert is an Oral Roberts University Alumnus and author of more than 40 books that together have sold more than one million copies. An ardent promoter of WWJD and such things as the Jesus diet (no joke!), his most famous books are the ”The Bible cure for ...”-series. You can get, for instance, The Bible cure for cancer, or The Bible Cure for Depression and Anxiety (”Ancient Truths, Natural Remedies and the Latest Findings for Your Health Today [With Guidebook]”), The Bible Cure for Weight Loss and Muscle Gain ("Jesus wants YOU to be thin" is in fact the slogan, and – just as you suspected – the diet recommendations are baskets of bread and fish, and watered down wine), The Bible Cure for Allergies, The Bible Cure for ADHD, for PMS & Mood Swings, and so on and so forth.

He has also written ”Toxic Relief: Restore Health and Energy Through Fasting and Detoxification” which will give you an idea about where this is heading. And yes, Colbert’s work is a brilliant combination of fundamentalist religion and the most ridiculous New Age alternative treatments (negative feelings as the main cause of disease, apart from mercury in dental fillings and vaccines and so on for some utter lunacy, visit here.

Extensively used by Televangelists to discuss health and nutrition (Benny Hinn, the Copelands). His claims are generally too loony to be caught by Quackwatch, Orac or the like.

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Diagnosis: Complete nutjob (with an admittedly effective marketing idea) and godbotter. Appears to be relatively influential.

Entry #011: Arthur M. Baker

Baker (no photo available) is an ardent proponent of that brand of food woo known as "raw foodism", i.e. the idea that we should ideally only eat raw (even living) food. This new age trend is primarily founded on the naturalistic fallacy (+ confirmation bias and anecdotal evidence) and has little scientific foundation. Not cooking any of one's food might be acceptable (though not recommendable) were it not for pesky food poisoning and bacteria. This by itself might not be enough to merit inclusion in the Encyclopedia - but of course folks like Baker have to take it a couple of steps further.



Baker is the author of "Awakening Our Self Healing Body", and he avoids the problem of bacteria in uncooked food since he doesn’t believe in the germ theory of disease anyway (it’s a conspiracy to support the food industry or something). A central supporter of the Natural Hygiene Movement, Baker rejects Western medicine and its theoretical foundation, and in his book “rips apart the notion of viruses destroying your body” (since viruses cannot do that since they are not living things) and similar claims, mostly based on ignorance, lies, bias and the purported fact that raw food is obviously natural and hence good, and Western medicine does not unequivocally recognize that. Parts of his ramblings are, however, semi-technical and well-written, and might to people with little knowledge about the matters look convincing. Support for raw foodism is, according to Baker, also found in the Bhagavad Gita and the Essene Gospel of peace. Another convincing argument he subscribes to is that Methuselah only ate raw food – and he got to live pretty long, didn’t he?

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Diagnosis: Loon. Confirmation bias is strong with this one, but he is only one of an almost endless parade of food cranks. The movement seems to have some impact, but Baker’s own influence in particular is uncertain; should be considered dangerous, however.