At 09:46 PM 1/28/97 -0500, you wrote:

snipped out most else:

Pat, you said:

>I have a copy of Adele Davis's "Let's Eat Right to Keep Fit", 1970, so much
>easier to understand than a biochem tome--all that same knowledge with a
>spoonful of sugar.   :).

I knew Adele.  I knew her sister better.  Very different.  Her sister was
also an intellectually sharp lady, but lived into her late nineties and in
excellent health all the way.  Adele's sister didn't hold herself out to be
an expert in nutrition, as did Adele.

>From what I personally saw, I would have always recommended following
Adele's sister's life-style, at least if one sought good health.  On the
other hand, if it was to follow the lead of a good business entrepreneur,
then I would suggest following Adele's example.

Adele came unglued at a comparatively early age, dying of acute cancer.
The poor lady was a horrible disaster.  She was a good student of
conventional nutrition...and was oft called the great white godess of
nutrition, at that.  Conventional "wisdom," of which she studied so much,
had it that proteins were the the virtual panacea in good nutrition.  She
was decidedly following the wrong science, as we now know in the brilliance
of hindsight, but Adele was quite talented in her ability to explain the
alleged "science" of nutrition to lay people in terms they could
understand.  Can't take that skill away from her.

Adele was the one person who did possibly more than anyone else to
accomplish the impossible...to get allopaths to accept nutrition as  factor
in human health.  She was so technical that it was possible for her to
persuade MDs to actually follow her advocacies, and she had many MDs
sending her clients before she passed away.  And this was taking place in
an era where the official position of allopathy was that; anyone claiming
that nutrition played any significant role in human health, was to be
instantly labeled a kook...someone mentally out to lunch; a quack.

So, Adele did some important things for the subject of public nutrition in
this respect:  she got the MDs to open up some, and she popularized the
topic among the laity big time.  In turn, of course, the public sector
began to pressure their physicians to open up more to nutrition vs.
drugging...and that level of public pressure bore good fruits: for the MDs
knew their income was dependent on their patients' feeling they could at
least be heard on this aspect of their treatment.

Ms. Davis made up a lot of products, sold them for millions of bucks, but
they were all heavily processed, offering heavy doses of proteinous
components, most from the inexpensive soybean family.  Her products (such
as the famed Tiger's Milk) were not at all cheap, though.  She took them
herself.

Dr. Henry G. Bieler (MD) was a contemporary of hers (much older, though),
and he blew the whistle on the dangers of the high protein intake fad that
Adele did so much to successfully promote.  He pointed out that we
Americans are already over-proteinized, and, although you can't see growth
without those aminos...that also happens to be equally true of cancer
cells, which he felt were such a plague much the consequence of having a
surfeit of proteins in our bodies in the first place.

When I first met Adele, I was shocked at how unhealthy she looked,
especially since I first knew her older sister, who radiated health, yet
never spoke about it much at all.  She (Adele's sister) did, however, have
lots to say about Adele that wasn't too positive.  Seems Adele's sister
felt the whole enterprise was one focused primarily on the bottom business
line...making as much mula as possible in as short a time as possible.  In
this respect, Adele was immensely successful, too.

Just couldn't let this reference to Adele slide by, since I had my own
personal look-see at that chapter of the American nutrition/health story.

Ric Lambart