Davis, Adelle

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DAVIS, Adelle

Born 25 February 1904, Hendricks County, Indiana; died 31 May 1974, Palos Verdes Estates, California

Also wrote under: Jane Dunlap

Daughter of Charles E. and Harriet McBroom Davis; married George E. Leisey, 1943; Frank V. Sieglinger, 1960

The youngest of five daughters, Adelle Davis attended Purdue University and then the University of California at Berkeley where she received her B.S. in dietetics in 1927. She then moved to New York and was a dietician for the Yonkers public schools, and a consulting nutritionist at the Judson Health Center. Davis returned to California in 1931 to be a consulting nutritionist for the Alameda County Health Clinic in Oakland and for the William E. Branch Clinic in Hollywood. She attained her M.S. in biochemistry from the University of Southern California School of Medicine in 1939. After writing several bestselling books Davis resigned from her consulting practice in order to devote time to the lectures and television appearances made during the last years of her life.

Davis first became well known with the publication in 1947 of her cookbook, Let's Cook It Right, which offers the novice in nutrition an enthusiastic introduction to the preparation of healthful foods. She stresses the use of protein and natural foods in cooking. Recipes are simple, easy to follow, and have innumerable variants depending upon what the cook happens to have in stock. The introduction gives sound nutritional cooking principles, and Davis includes a lengthy section on meat, recognizing that failures in this category are a major hurdle for most cooks. Also included are sections on meat substitutes, leftovers, fish, eggs and cheese, vegetables, soups, salads, bread, and healthful desserts. This is the most popular and successful of Davis' books, devoid as it is of the contradictions and repetitions found so often in her later books. Let's Cook It Right offers cooking advice and directions in a clear, concise, and direct style.

Let's Have Healthy Children came out in 1951. Here Davis stresses diet and vitamin supplements for the woman before conception, during pregnancy when extra vitamin B-6 and folic acid are required, and during lactation. The book also centers on proper diet for babies and young children. A staunch advocate of breastfeeding for the first six months of life, Davis also provides formula recipes. Let's Have Healthy Children was generally well received by the public, but with the publication of Let's Eat Right to Keep Fit in 1954 Davis came under increasing attack from the medical profession for her bold assertions that proper diet with vitamin supplements could prevent most diseases and abnormalities. Here she details the vitamin and mineral contents of foods and thoroughly explains what one must eat to prevent illness, describing, by way of example, her own regimen.

In 1961 Davis published Exploring Inner Space (under the pseudonym of Jane Dunlap) which describes her experiences while under the influence of LSD. The book is written in an extravagant, even gushing style, as Davis describes her revelations of God and her visions; yet she is open, honest, and sincere. When later medical reports surfaced about LSD's harm to the genes and body, Davis continued to claim the drug's benefits.

Finally, in Let's Get Well (1965) Davis describes most common illnesses and diseases and prescribes specific vitamin and dietary cures for them. She bases her findings, as always, on case studies, personal testimonials, and a wealth of scientific data, painstakingly cross-referenced. This is her most controversial book, since Davis orders as cures heavy vitamin doses which doctors warn can be dangerously toxic.

In all of her books, Davis attempts to act as an intermediary between the medical profession and the lay nutritionist. Thus she takes the plethora of medical data, synthesizes it, simplifies it, and offers it to the public in an understandable language. Davis was often accused by the medical profession of being grossly inaccurate and of distorting her facts. On the other hand, she has been commended by professionals in her field as well as by her readers and those she personally helped through diet and vitamin therapy. Writing in her exuberant yet conversational style, Davis has perhaps done more to make Americans aware of nutrition and change their eating habits than has any other individual.