Adelle Davis (1904-1974), popularly known as Adelle Davis, was a pioneer in the fledgling field of nutrition during the mid-20th century, and an outspoken advocate of whole unprocessed foods and the dominant role that all nutrients play in maintaining health and preventing disease, and in restoring health after the onset of disease:
"Research shows that diseases of almost every variety can be produced by an under-supply of various combinations of nutrients.... can be corrected when all nutrients are supplied, provided irreparable damage has not been done; and, still better, that these diseases can be prevented."
Davis is best known as the author of a series of educational books published in the United States between 1947 and 1965. One of her books, Let's Have Healthy Children (Signet 1981, revised edition) states that Davis prepared individual diets for more than 20,000 people who came to her or were referred to her by physicians during her years as a consultant.
Her published works were criticized and discredited by some members of the scientific and medical communities at that time, but ongoing medical and nutritional research has corroborated much of her nutritional guidelines of yesteryear, and brought her a measure of posthumous acclaim.
She was also well known for her scathing criticism of the food industry in the United States. In the early 1970s she addressed the ninth annual convention of the "International Association of Cancer Victims and Friends" at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. After citing US Department of Agriculture statistics about tens of millions of people in the US suffering from afflictions such as arthritis, allergies, heart disease, and cancer, she stated, "This is what's happening to us, to America, because there is a 125-billion-dollar food industry who cares nothing about health".
