Adelle Davis

The best-selling nutrition author of the mid-century — over ten million copies — who put supplementation and whole foods into American kitchens decades ahead of the culture.

Davis had genuine credentials — a Berkeley degree and a USC master’s in biochemistry — and she counselled an estimated twenty thousand clients across thirty-five years. Her books outsold everyone else’s in the field combined, and her core message (eat whole food, avoid sugar and hydrogenated fat, take the deficiency seriously) has held up better than her critics expected.

The specifics did not hold up. The errors were real, they were numerous, and in a handful of documented cases the advice caused harm.

She is essential to this history and cannot be presented without the record. Both facts belong on the page.

Note on dating: Davis died in May 1974. Any recording dated after that is a rebroadcast or a memorial, and should be catalogued as such.

Selected books

• Let's Cook It Right (1947)
• Let's Have Healthy Children (1951)
• Let's Eat Right to Keep Fit (1954)
• Let's Get Well (1965)

Rights

Estate or foundation: Adelle Davis Foundation. Clearance requests for this speaker's recordings go here.