HISTORY OF EREWHON - NATURAL FOODS ... - SoyInfo Center

Erewhon was founded in April 1966 by Aveline and Michio
Kushi as a tiny retail store in Boston, Massachusetts selling
macrobiotic and natural foods. By 1968 it was importing
foods from Japan. By 1969 it had grown into the first
natural foods wholesale and distribution company in the
United States. Its founders saw it as a macrobiotic company,
but many of the young Americans who built it saw it as a
natural foods company as well.
There have been three major reform movements, or waves,
related to food and health in the United States. Each has had
its own philosophy or theory of diet and heath, its own
periodicals, and, of course, its own founders, leaders, and
teachers/lecturers. All three believed that there were certain
natural laws of health and of the body which, if
transgressed, would lead to sickness. The way to restore
health was not (generally) to take medicines (which simply
cover up the symptoms) but to stop the activity which was
causing the sickness. All three believed in the healing power
of nature, and advocated the return to a simpler, more
natural way of living and eating. All three emphasized the
importance of a good diet as the basis of good health, and
(at least initially) all three advocated a vegetarian diet based
on traditional, natural foods, and avoidance of refined,
highly processed, or artificial foods. Each new wave was
bigger than the one before it and had more influence on
American food culture.
The first wave, which went from the 1820s to the 1890s,
is generally called the health reform movement. Centered in
Boston, it was started by Sylvester Graham and the
American Physiological Society; good diet, water, exercise,
fresh air and rest were considered the foundations of good
health. Other pioneers and leaders included William Andrus
Alcott (M.D.), Amos Bronson Alcott, James Caleb Jackson,
Russell Thacher Trall, Larkin B. Coles, Ellen G. White and
the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Most preached a return
to whole-wheat bread, and avoidance of flesh foods and
alcohol. Health reformers strongly opposed the use of patent
medicines; they called it “drugless healing.”
Important early periodicals were: Boston Medical
Intelligencer (1823-1828), Journal of Health (1829-1833),
Water-Cure Journal (1845-1862), American Vegetarian and
Health Journal (1850-1854), Health Reformer (1866-1878,
renamed Good Health (1879-1953, published by John
Harvey Kellogg, M.D.).
Important books: Lectures on the Science of Human Life
(2 vols.), by Sylvester Graham (1839). The Hygeian Home
Cook-Book: or, Healthful and Palatable Food without
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HISTORY OF EREWHON 8
Condiments, by Russell T. Trall, M.D, (America’s first
“vegan” cookbook, it called for the use of no dairy products
or eggs).
The second wave, which went from the 1890s to the 1960s,
is called the health foods movement. Many of its original
ideas and some of its pioneers (especially in California and
New York in the early 1900s) came from Germany and its
Reformhaus and Lebensreform (“life reform”) movements.
These Naturmenschen (“natural men”) from Germany were
California’s original hippies (see Children of the Sun, by
Gordon Kennedy, 1998).
Its major early centers of activity were Southern
California (especially Hollywood), Battle Creek, Michigan
(Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, who popularized the term
“health foods” from 1892 and whose Sanitarium Health
Food Co. made the first line of health foods), New York,
and Boston (Benedict Lust of Germany, the leading
naturopath and a major publisher). Pioneers in California
included Otto Carque, Clark Irvine, Gayelord Hauser, Paul
C. Bragg, Mildred Lager, Lelord Kordel, Adelle Davis, and
Gypsy Boots. Vitamins and minerals were discovered
during this period, and the movement emphasized (and
overemphasized) their importance. Hundreds of health
foods stores (many of them small, mom-and-pop
operations) were started during this period (most after
1935); their owners believed deeply in the their work.
Important early periodicals included: Good Health
(1879-1953, still published in Michigan by John Harvey
Kellogg, M.D.). California Health News (Jan. 1931,
published by Clark Irvine in Hollywood, renamed Health
News in Sept. 1937, then Let’s Live in May 1942), Health
Foods Retailing (April 1936), Organic Farming and
Gardening (May 1942, published by J. I. Rodale in
Pennsylvania, renamed Organic Gardening and Farming,
Jan. 1954). Rodale pioneered the organic foods movement
in the United States. By the early 1950s foods labeled
“organically grown” were being sold in the United States.
Important books: The Foundation of All Reform, by Otto
Carque (1904). The Natural Diet of Man, by Dr. J.H.
Kellogg (1923). Natural Foods: The Safe Way to Health, by
Otto Carque (1925). Cure Yourself, by Paul Bragg (1929).
You Can Stay Well, by Adelle Davis (1939). Let’s Cook It
Right, by Adelle Davis (1947). Look Younger, Live Longer,
by Gayelord Hauser (1950). Let’s Eat Right to Keep Fit, by
Adelle Davis (1954). Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson (Sept.
1962). More than One Slingshot, by Frank Murray (1984).
Important early distributors included Kahan & Lessin
(1932, Los Angeles), Landstrom Co. (1931, San Francisco),