Arnold ehret biography books

The writings of Arnold Ehret (1866-1922) immortalized his ideas and have become intrinsic to Naturopathic practice right up into our own era. He introduced cleansing diets of fruits and vegetables, and correctly managed fasting, directly addressing the dangers of mucus forming foods. From his perspective over a century ago, refined foods were the culprit and “the fundamental cause and main factor in the nature of all diseases, symptoms of age, obesity, falling out of the hair, wrinkles, weakness of nerves and memory, etc.”

It seemed in the beginning that his destiny was to follow in his father’s footsteps and die of tuberculosis. By the time he was 31, he was overweight, had Bright’s disease [nephritis], and inclined with consumptive symptomology, so much so that he needed to take several breaks from his work to recuperate. In his own words, Ehret described the ordeals of restoring his health: “Then for five years, I suffered much from many physicians (24 in total) and part of this suffering was to pay the bills of about $6000 [more than $170 000 in 2019], but with the result pronounced incurable.Not seeing a way out of his predicament with debts, and with no hope for recovery, Ehret contemplated suicide. By chance, though, he overheard stories of Naturopathy and the Kneipp cures.

Ehret never claimed to be the one who invented fasting or a fruit diet. His particular contribution to the Naturopathic repertoire is having combined these two elements together into a comprehensive system that transformed the lives of patients who consulted him. He called his diet, “the Mucusless Diet Healing System” after [his] ‘mucus theory’ had become a well established as a substantial explanation for what he contended to be the largest factor in and fundamental cause of every diseased condition”. He developed a whole foods diet consisting of fruits and vegetables which were consumed before fasting. From Ehret’s perspective, the fastest way to recover health was

German naturopath and alternative health educator

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 di