The Experience Miracles Podcast

Dairy and Grains Aren’t the Enemy — How They Can Actually Be a HEALTH Food w/ Jordan Rubin

Sep 16, 2025

Grains, Dairy, and Red Meat as Healing Foods: The Biblio Diet for Families with Neurodivergent Children

Episode 139, Experience Miracles Podcast | Host: Dr. Tony Ebel, DC, CACCP, Pediatric Chiropractor & Founder of PX Docs | Published: September 16, 2024 | Duration: ~55 min

Guest: Jordan Rubin, Natural Health Expert, Author of The Biblio Diet (co-authored with Dr. Josh Axe)

Key Takeaways

  • The Biblio Diet challenges the widespread advice to eliminate grains, dairy, and red meat, arguing that these foods were foundational to human health in biblical times and remain healing foods today, provided they are consumed in their proper, traditionally prepared forms.
  • A1 vs. A2 dairy is one of the most overlooked distinctions in pediatric nutrition: conventional U.S. cow’s milk contains the A1 beta casein protein, which forms beta casomorphin 7, an opioid stimulator with 26 gut receptor sites, potentially 13 times more disruptive than gluten. Dairy from goats, sheep, water buffalo, or A2-labeled cows avoids this entirely.
  • Properly fermented sourdough bread made from ancient grains like einkorn wheat has been shown in studies to be tolerated even by patients diagnosed with celiac disease, because the long-fermentation process virtually eliminates gluten, making it fundamentally different from grocery store “sourdough.”
  • King Solomon’s daily diet, recorded in 1 Kings 4:22–23, consisted of grass-fed cattle, choice fowl, deer, and bread, a template Jordan Rubin argues reflects the optimal human diet: quality animal protein paired with properly prepared whole grains.
  • Nervous system regulation and diet work together: Dr. Tony Ebel explains that even the most perfectly sourced food will not fully heal a child whose autonomic nervous system is dysregulated. Combining Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care with the Biblio Diet addresses both the form of food and the function of the body receiving it.

Why Grains, Dairy, and Red Meat May Be Healing Foods for Your Neurodivergent Child

Many families raising neurodivergent children have spent years in a state of constant dietary restriction, eliminating gluten, dairy, grains, red meat, and countless other foods on the advice of well-meaning practitioners. Jordan Rubin, natural health expert and author of The Biblio Diet, presents a fundamentally different argument: the problem is rarely the food category itself, but the industrial form in which that food is consumed. Grains grown from ancient, unhybridized wheat varieties and fermented through traditional sourdough methods behave differently in the body than modern commercial bread. Dairy from A2-protein sources, goats, sheep, or A2-labeled cows, does not trigger the same inflammatory cascade as conventional A1 dairy. Grass-fed red meat, as consumed throughout biblical history, provides nourishment the body is designed to receive.

The core principle of the Biblio Diet is that God’s design for food and God’s design for the human body work in alignment, when both are honored in their intended form. This means eating what the Bible identifies as food and consuming it in a form that is as close as possible to how it would have been eaten in biblical times. This is not a restrictive framework. It is a return to simplicity.

For parents of neurodivergent, sensory-sensitive, or spectrum children, this message carries particular weight. Many of these children are already intensely craving the very foods they have been told to avoid, bread, dairy, meat. Jordan and Dr. Tony argue this craving is not defiance or addiction; it may reflect a deep biological signal that the body recognizes these foods as nourishment when they arrive in their right form.

Why Jordan Rubin Created the Biblio Diet, and Why It Started with Paleo [00:02:00 – 00:09:00]

Jordan Rubin: The spark for the Biblio Diet started about 12 to 14 years ago. He had been asked to write the foreword for a fitness and health book by a respected pastor. As he read the manuscript, the pastor had referenced the paleo diet, a diet based on millions of years of human evolution, which Jordan does not believe in, and which the Bible does not teach.

Jordan told the pastor he would recommend removing the reference to paleo, because he wanted people saying they were on the Biblio Diet instead. Something that rhymes with paleo, but sounds like Bible. The name stuck.

The Biblio Diet teaches people how to eat and live by the book. It flies in the face of modern “wisdom.” It introduces fresh revelation from a text that is thousands of years old. As Jordan puts it, certain truths are hidden in plain sight, and they become revealed for such a time as this.

Dr. Tony Ebel: This conversation is the most multifaceted, congruent thing we could have on this podcast. The nervous system, the Perfect Storm, the foundation, you have to repair and restore the biological and neurological foundation before any advanced nutritional intervention will take hold. The Biblio Diet gets the food form right. Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care gets the function right. These two approaches don’t compete, they complete each other.

“What if everything we’re talking about that generates unbelievable, miracle-level healing has been hidden in plain sight this whole time? A whole lot more simple, therefore a whole lot more profound and powerful than anybody else has ever seen, thought, or gone after.”, Dr. Tony Ebel

The Biblical Case for Grains: Solomon’s Daily Diet and the Truth About Bread [00:21:00 – 00:28:00]

Jordan Rubin: King Solomon was the wisest man on earth. Every king visited him to hear his wisdom. He understood animals, plants, and the human body better than anyone of his era. He was the wealthiest man in the world, living in a time of peace. If you have all the money, all the wisdom, all the time, what you choose to eat is going to be the best possible food.

In 1 Kings 4, verses 22 and 23, the Bible records Solomon’s daily provisions: grass-fed cattle, stall-fed cattle, choice fowl, deer, and flour and meal, which were made into bread. The wisest man on earth ate meat and bread.

Today, some say meat will kill you. Others say plants are trying to kill you. Almost everyone says grains, especially gluten, are harmful. But how could Jesus describe himself as the Bread of Life if bread were poison? How could two of the seven Feasts of the Lord center on the wheat and barley harvest if grain were the enemy?

The answer is that bread is a health food when consumed in its right form. The problem is not bread. The problem is what industrialization did to bread.

“The whiter the bread, the sooner you are dead. You could leave white bread out in nature, as long as it doesn’t get wet, and it will look the same for decades because of the preservatives and dough conditioners. It’s not food.”, Jordan Rubin

Jordan’s recommendation for families: seek out sourdough bread made from einkorn wheat (unhybridized, less gluten, spelled E-I-N-K-O-R-N) or spelt. Properly fermented sourdough, not the white sourdough loaves at most grocery stores, has been shown in studies to be tolerated even by patients with celiac disease, because the fermentation process virtually eliminates the gluten. This is fundamentally different from gluten-free alternatives made from potato starch and tapioca.

Spelt sourdough is available nationally at Whole Foods and Sprouts. Einkorn can be ordered online. For families whose neurodivergent children are intensely craving bread, Jordan encourages introducing small amounts of whole grain sourdough and watching what happens. The craving may be the body’s recognition of real food.

The A1 vs. A2 Dairy Distinction: Why Conventional Milk Isn’t the Same as All Dairy [00:33:00 – 00:44:00]

Jordan Rubin: He was diagnosed with Crohn’s colitis in 1995. Over a two-year battle, he had what some medical experts described as one of the worst cases they had ever seen. He visited 69 medical experts and tried every known diet, carnivore, vegan, food combining, macrobiotic. What ultimately worked included copious amounts of dairy, bread, and red meat. He drove a 1968 Chevrolet RV to health food stores in California to get his raw cream, kefir, and cottage cheese.

The dairy distinction that makes all the difference is A1 vs. A2 beta casein protein.

Conventional cow’s milk in the United States contains A1 beta casein, which when digested forms beta casomorphin 7, an opioid stimulator. This compound binds to opioid receptor sites in the gut. Gluten binds to 2 opioid receptor sites in the gut. A1 beta casein binds to 26. Jordan describes A1 dairy as potentially 13 times more disruptive than gluten.

Importantly, this problem is specific to most U.S. commercial dairy cattle. Sheep milk, goat milk, water buffalo milk, and certain A2-labeled cow’s milk do not contain A1 beta casein. Human breast milk is A2. Virtually every other animal species produces A2 dairy, except the breeds of cattle that dominate American commercial dairy production.

Jordan Rubin: If you can find A2 dairy from goats, sheep, or water buffalo, it is naturally closer to ideal. If from an A2-labeled cow’s milk source, even better. Ideally, seek it out in fermented form, kefir, yogurt, real cheese, or raw cultured cottage cheese. The good fats in this dairy support brain development. Jordan’s family has consumed raw A2 grass-fed dairy every day since 1996.

Dr. Tony Ebel: The families in our practice who eat this way, raw dairy, fermented foods, sourdough, grass-fed red meat, their kids are just so calm. I contrast them against the rest of the world and the difference is remarkable. Less anxiety. More ease. More joy.

Where to find A2 dairy:

  • realmilk.com, raw dairy finder by location
  • Farmers markets (ask “Who’s the goat lady around here?”)
  • Health food stores: ask for raw goat or sheep milk
  • Grocery stores: Manchego cheese from Costco is already a sheep’s milk product

“I consumed copious amounts of dairy, raw cream, kefir, cottage cheese, with the worst gut anyone had seen. I had avoided dairy before that. I had avoided meat. I had avoided bread. They weren’t the problem. The form was the problem.”, Jordan Rubin

Form and Function: Why the Right Food Still Needs a Regulated Nervous System [00:28:00 – 00:33:00]

Dr. Tony Ebel: There’s one more place to take the word “form”, and it’s a close cousin called “function.” God designed the development of our bodies and our biology to go in a very specific sequence, with a very specific foundation. That foundation is the function of the nervous system.

The reason wheat, gluten, and dairy have wreaked havoc on so many people’s guts is not only that they weren’t coming in the right form. They were going into the most dysfunctional, dysregulated, neuro-gut, neuro-immune system imaginable.

So we need to match forms on both ends. The nutrition coming in needs to be in its absolute, God-designed form. And the nervous system receiving it needs to be functioning in its proper form as well.

If you want the master approach, two keys that are really one key, restore health by addressing: what form are these foods coming in? And what function is the autonomic nervous system operating at? A completely dysregulated nervous system is not going to respond well to even the best food. But pair food in its right form with nervous system regulation through Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care, and the healing capacity changes dramatically.

Jordan Rubin: I fully agree. And I’ll add, the families who have been through the most extreme dietary restriction cycles, who feel like they failed every time their child accidentally ate something “wrong”, this framework releases them from that. It’s not about a single exposure undoing months of work. It’s about building the right foundation.

Biblical Foods to Avoid: Pork and Shellfish [00:44:00 – 00:50:00]

Jordan Rubin: If you are following an ancestral, paleo, or carnivore diet, one area worth reconsidering is the elimination of pork and shellfish, what the Bible in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14 refers to as detestable animals.

This is not a theological mandate for non-believers. But even from a purely physiological standpoint, Jordan argues that pigs and shellfish were designed by God as cleanup animals, not food animals. The anatomy and physiology of a pig is that of a biological garbage processor. Shellfish are filter feeders designed to clean waterways. The heavy metal toxicity, bacterial load, and parasite burden in both has been documented.

Jordan points out that the same Hebrew word God uses for pork and shellfish in the Levitical text is used for human excrement. The argument is not about religious guilt. It’s about what these animals are designed to do at a biological level.

For families whose children have ongoing neurological or immune challenges: eliminating pork and shellfish is a low-cost, low-friction experiment. Jordan describes it as a hidden variable that often goes unaddressed in even the most thorough biomedical workups.

“You’re not going to go to hell if you eat pork or shellfish. But like somebody once said, you’ll get to heaven, you’ll just get there a lot sooner.”, Jordan Rubin

The Biblio Diet Book and Free Chapter on Healing Leaves [00:44:00 – 00:50:00]

Jordan Rubin: The Biblio Diet, co-authored with Dr. Josh Axe, is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Christian Book Distributors, and wherever books are sold.

The free chapter, Chapter 14: Healing Leaves, is available at theibliodiet.com. Jordan describes it as covering the only food mentioned in both the Old and New Testaments as a healing medicine, which God revealed to him in 2019. The chapter is downloadable regardless of whether you purchase the book.

Dr. Tony Ebel: Reading this book on planes over the last couple of weeks, I kept feeling just one thing: peace. Not overwhelm. Not “how am I going to pull this off?” Just peace. That sense of simplicity, knowing that the foundation has been there this whole time, that the answers are as old as time, that the real secret sauce is returning to what God already designed. If that’s not biblical, I don’t know what is.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can my neurodivergent child really eat bread and dairy?

According to Jordan Rubin and Dr. Tony Ebel, yes, but the form matters. Properly fermented sourdough made from ancient grains like einkorn or spelt has been shown in studies to be tolerated even by celiac patients, because fermentation virtually eliminates gluten. A2 dairy from goat, sheep, or A2-labeled cows does not contain the A1 beta casein protein found in conventional U.S. milk, the compound linked to opioid receptor activation and gut inflammation. These are not the same foods as grocery store bread and commercial milk.

What is A1 vs. A2 dairy and why does it matter for kids with gut or sensory issues?

Most conventional cow’s milk in the U.S. contains A1 beta casein protein, which digests into beta casomorphin 7, an opioid-stimulating compound that binds to 26 opioid receptor sites in the gut. For comparison, gluten binds to 2. This makes A1 dairy potentially 13 times more disruptive than gluten for sensitive guts. A2 dairy, from goats, sheep, water buffalo, or A2-labeled cows, does not contain this protein. Human breast milk is A2. Look for goat cheese, sheep yogurt, raw kefir, or A2-labeled cow’s milk at health food stores and farmers markets.

What is the Biblio Diet and how is it different from paleo or other clean-eating approaches?

The Biblio Diet, created by Jordan Rubin and Dr. Josh Axe, is a framework for eating based on biblical principles rather than evolutionary theory. Unlike paleo, it does not eliminate grains or dairy. Unlike many functional medicine elimination protocols, it does not restrict an ever-expanding list of foods. The two core principles are: eat what God created as food, and eat it in a form that is healthy for the body, meaning traditionally prepared, minimally processed, and as close to its original design as possible.

Why are Jordan Rubin and Dr. Tony Ebel combining the Biblio Diet with chiropractic care?

Dr. Tony Ebel explains that even perfectly sourced food enters a body with an autonomic nervous system that may be completely dysregulated, stuck in Sympathetic Dominance, unable to properly digest, absorb, or respond to nutrition. Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care addresses the functional root, restoring the nervous system’s capacity to regulate digestion, immunity, and the inflammatory cascade. Paired with Biblio Diet principles, this combination addresses both form (what you eat) and function (the body’s capacity to receive it).

What foods does the Biblio Diet say to avoid?

Beyond avoiding ultra-processed, industrially manufactured versions of any food, Jordan Rubin recommends eliminating pork and shellfish, which the Bible identifies as detestable animals in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14. From a physiological standpoint, he argues these animals are designed as biological cleanup systems, with high heavy metal toxicity, bacterial load, and parasite burden. This is a simple, no-cost dietary experiment that Jordan says often addresses a hidden variable in children’s chronic health challenges.

How do I find a PX Docs chiropractor who understands the nervous system approach?

The PX Docs directory connects families with trained Neurologically-Focused Chiropractors across the U.S. and internationally. Use the search tool to find an office near you.

Find a PX Docs Office Near You, PX Docs Directory

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