Arnold Ehret Popular Books

Arnold Ehret Biography & Facts

Arnold Ehret (July 29, 1866 –  October 10, 1922) was a German naturopath, alternative health educator and germ theory denialist, best known for developing the Mucusless Diet Healing System. Ehret authored books and articles on dieting, detoxification, fruitarianism, fasting, food combining, health, longevity, naturopathy, physical culture and vitalism. In opposition to medical science that asserts white blood cells are important components of the immune system, Ehret believed that white blood cells are caused by consuming mucus-forming foods, and as waste materials, poison the blood. His ideas about diet and disease have no scientific basis and have been criticized by medical experts as dangerous. Life Ehret was born in 1866, in St. Georgen (Black Forest), Schwarzwald, Baden, near Freiburg, southern Germany. Ehret's interests were physics, chemistry, drawing and painting. In 1887 at age 21, he graduated as a Professor of Drawing from a college in Baden. After studying in Frankfurt, he then taught there at a technical school for 15 years. Ehret was discharged from the army after nine months because of a heart condition. During the 1890s his health deteriorated and he took interest in naturopathy. He visited Sebastian Kneipp's water cure sanatorium in Wörishofen. He embraced fasting and a diet that consisted primarily of fruit. He founded a Sanitarium in Switzerland and used his diet to treat people. He moved to the United States in 1914 and attended the Panama–Pacific International Exposition of 1915. He opened an office in Los Angeles to promote his ideas. As a young man, it is alleged that Ehret was diagnosed with Bright's disease which he cured with his mucusless diet but no reliable evidence has confirmed this (Bright's Disease is inflammation of the kidneys). In his later life, Ehret convinced himself he possessed psychic powers. He attended seances and stated that he had contacted the spirit of his deceased father. Ehret developed and marketed the Innerclean Intestinal Laxative. In the 1930s the product was investigated and found to be fraudulent (see criticism section). Much of Ehret's early life is alleged to have been documented by Anita Bauer, a spiritualist. Bauer authored Arnold Ehret's Story of My Life in 1980 after claiming she had been visited by Ehret's ghost. Historians have questioned if the book is nothing more than "lurid fiction". On 9 October 1922, Ehret fell while walking down a street sustaining a fatal injury to his head. Views on human health Disease Ehret claimed that pus and mucus-forming foods were the cause of human disease, "schleimlose" (slime-free) foods were the key to human health, and "fasting (simply eating less) is Nature's omnipotent method of cleansing the body from the effects of wrong and too much eating." Fasting In 1907, Ehret, who was based in Freiburg, visited Monte Verità, a nature life colony in Ascona, Switzerland, near Lake Maggiore, whose visitors included Lenin and Trotsky. After collaborating with Henri Oedenkoven who owned a sanitarium at Monte Verità, Ehret opened one sanitarium in Ascona and another in nearby Lugano (Massagno), writing one of his books in Locarno. Around 1909, Ehret engaged in a series of public lectures and fasts monitored by German and Swiss officials. In 1909, he claimed he fasted for 105 days in total. In 1910, he wrote an article for a German vegetarian magazine about his 49-day fasting experience, which gained the public's interest, and which later appeared in his book Lebensfragen (Life Questions). For 65 years, Fred and Lucille Hirsch published Ehret's literature and the torch symbol found on Ehret's books became the logo of the Ehret Health Club. In 1979, the Ehret Literature Publishing Company Inc, in New York, inherited Ehret's publications and archive of unpublished German manuscripts. Vitalism Having denounced the nitrogenous-albumin metabolic theory in 1909, Ehret learned of a contemporary, Thomas Powell, in 1912, who concurred with his belief that "grape sugar" (simple sugars in fruits and vegetables) was the optimum fuel source, body building material, and agent of vital energy for humans, not protein rich foods. Powell had set out his beliefs in the book "Fundamentals and Requirements of Health and Disease," published in 1909. Ehret claimed alkaline foods, which were also mucusless, formed the natural diet of humans. Ehret asserted that the body is an air-gas engine, not dependent on food for energy, and that the body was not designed to utilize mucus-forming foods, offering the equation Vitality = Power − Obstruction (V = P − O) to demonstrate this. Ehret also claimed the lungs were the pump in the body, while the heart acted as a valve, with the blood controlling the heart. Ehret further believed that white blood cells were the result of ingesting mucus-forming foods. Metabolism influence on health Ehret maintained that new tissue was built primarily from simple sugars in fruits, not metabolised from protein and fat-rich foods. Ehret favored nuts and seeds only during transition (and only in the winter) to the ideal fruit diet, and even then, only "sparingly," condemning high-protein and fat-rich foods, as "unnatural," writing further that "no animals eat fats" and "all fats are acid forming, even those of vegetable origin, and are not used by the body." Later editions of his Mucusless Diet Healing System published by Fred S. Hirsch, claimed nuts were "mucus-free." Ehret specifically renounced meat, eggs, milk, fats, cereals, legumes, potatoes, and rice, whilst recognizing the transitional value in some of these. Ehret, citing Ragnar Berg, stated that fats and proteins were acid-forming and were to be consumed in moderation, as did Ehret's contemporary: Otto Carque. Religious views Along with his sister, Ehret was brought up as a Roman Catholic. He believed in God, but took issue with the Church because of its dietary requirements in a letter to the Pope, and subsequently quit the Church, though his faith in God remained. After his death, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, who was aware of his writings on Jesus, wrote to Fred Hirsch to confirm he would ban Catholics from reading Ehret's religious writings, if published. Prior to this, Ehret was popular with the bishop and the Catholic fraternity. Criticism None of Ehret's claims are recognized as valid by experts in the scientific, medical, and nutritional fields to the present day. They largely contradict well-understood biology and chemistry, and are unsupported by any evidence. Mucusless diets were critiqued as unscientific in the book Diet and Die by health writer Carl Malmberg in 1935. The "Special Committee on Aging" of the 88th US Congress published a report on "Frauds and Quackery effecting the Older Citizen" in 1963, in which it mentions Ehret as a quack whose "cultists earnestly believed that women who adhered to the diet program of 'Professor' Arnold Ehret could expect 'immaculate conception.'". In 1978, E.... Discover the Arnold Ehret popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Arnold Ehret books.