Gustav Schlickeysen Explained

Gustav Schlickeysen
Birth Date:	September 9, 1843
Birth Place:	Berlin, Germany
Death Date:	1893
Death Place:	Jersey City, New Jersey, U.S.
Occupation:	Naturopath, writer

Gustav Schlickeysen (September 9, 1843 – 1893) was a German naturopath and raw food advocate.

Biography

In 1875, Schlickeysen attacked meat-eating for causing militarism and a "roaming, savage and warlike life".^[1] He argued that Germans should embrace a fruit and grain diet, appropriate to their natural home in the forest.^[1] He has been described as an "early propagandist of vegetarianism."^[2]

Schlickeysen was a fruitarian who proposed the use of "fruit medicine", he believed that raw fruits were "sunlight nutrition".^[3] He authored the book Fruit and Bread: A Scientific Diet, which advocated an uncooked diet of fruits, grains and nuts. It was translated by Martin Luther Holbrook.^[4] In 1877, Francis William Newman President of the Vegetarian Society criticized the book for condemning beans, lentils, honey, tea and all cooked foods.^[5] Newman considered Schlickeysen a "pernicious foe to our society" and the book fanatical.^[5]

Publications

• Fruit and Bread: A Scientific Diet (Translated from the German by M. L. Holbrook, 1877)

Further reading

• Anonymous. (1878). Review: Fruit and Bread a Scientific Diet. The Garden 13: 222.

Notes and References

1. Treitel, Corinna. (2017). Eating Nature in Modern Germany: Food, Agriculture and Environment, c.1870 to 2000. Cambridge University Press. p. 85.
2. Alexander-Williams, John. (1996). Giving Nature a Higher Purpose: Back-to-Nature Movements in Weimar Germany, 1918-1933. University of Michigan. p. 18
3. Mehdipour, Parvin. (2017). Cancer Genetics and Psychotherapy. Springer Publishing. p. 942.
4. Iacobbo, Karen; Iacobbo, Michael. (2004). Vegetarian America: A History. Praeger Publishing. p. 119.
5. Spencer, Colin. (1995). The Heretic's Feast: A History of Vegetarianism. University Press of New England. p. 276.