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Aveline Kushi, a leader of the health
food movement who helped found one of the nation's first
natural food stores, has died following a lengthy battle
with cancer. She was 78.
With her husband, Michio, the Japanese-born
Kushi was a leading proponent of alternative medicine and
of macrobiotics, the belief that eating
a mostly vegetarian diet of organic grains and produce,
affects far more than physical health.
Practitioners believe that eating meat
and processed foods contributes to aggression and disharmony
not only in individuals, but in whole societies, undermining
prospects for world peace.
Kushi was diagnosed with cancer of the
cervix about nine years ago.
In the early 1960s, the Kushis moved
from New York to the Boston area, where they formed study
groups to discuss diet and its effects on health and world
peace.
The groups generated demand for natural
and organic foods, and in 1966 Aveline Kushi opened Erewhon,
a shop in Brookline named for a utopian novel by British
philosopher Samuel Butler. She shortly afterward opened
a branch in Los Angeles. She sold the company in 1983.
She was born in Yokota, Japan, and came
to the United States in 1951.
In 1978, the couple founded the Kushi
Institute, a school to teach macrobiotics. Thousands have
attended the institute's courses and those offered by a
sister school in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The Massachusetts
school moved to Becket, Mass., in 1990.
Christine Akbar, a Kushi family spokeswoman,
said Aveline Kushi underwent traditional radiation therapy
after learning she had cancer. When the cancer spread to
her bones, she was told there was no other conventional
treatment available, Akbar said. Kushi relied on acupuncture
and other Eastern medicines and the cancer was in remission
for several years.
Besides her husband, she is survived
by four sons, 13 grandchildren and seven siblings. A daughter
died of cancer in 1995.
COMMENT
by Dr. Stephen Byrnes:
It is, of course, sad when another
dies of cancer. What should be highlighted here, however,
is the fact that Mrs. Kushi, as well as one of her daughters
(presumably also following a macrobiotic diet), died of
cancer and that the macrobiotic diet is presented as an
ideal way to PREVENT (and sometimes TREAT) cancer.
Though no diet offers 100% protection
against any disease, the claims for macrobiotics are highly
suspect given the unfortunate reasons behind Kushi's passing.
I feel that I should point out here what most of the public
does not know concerning macrobiotics: many of its adherents
smoke -- quite heavily -- as well as drink large amounts
of coffee. Tobacco is viewed as a "yang" substance
in macrobiotic philosophy.
Anne Louise Gittleman, in her book
Your
Body Knows Best, commented on these strange practices
in macrobiotics (Gittleman used to be an adherent and got
very sick in the process) and attributed them to practitioners
needing stimulants because of what was lacking in the diet:
adequate fat and protein.
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