Arnold Ehret

Lore & Background

Ehret was born in St. Georgen (Black Forest), Baden, near Freiburg, southern Germany. He graduated as a Professor of Drawing in 1887 and taught at a technical school for 15 years. After his health deteriorated in the 1890s, he embraced naturopathy, visiting Sebastian Kneipp's water cure sanatorium and adopting a fruit-based diet. He founded a sanitarium in Switzerland and moved to the United States in 1914, opening an office in Los Angeles to promote his ideas. Ehret claimed to have cured himself of Bright's disease with his mucusless diet, but no reliable evidence confirms this. He later believed he possessed psychic powers and attended seances. He died on October 9, 1922, after falling and sustaining a fatal head injury.

Reader's Guide

Arnold Ehret's significance lies in his development of the Mucusless Diet Healing System, a fruitarian and fasting regimen that he claimed could cure disease by eliminating mucus-forming foods. His ideas, including the belief that white blood cells are decayed mucus and that the heart is merely a valve, have no scientific basis and have been repeatedly criticized by medical experts as unscientific and dangerous. The U.S. Congress Special Committee on Aging listed him as a quack in 1963. His Innerclean Intestinal Laxative was found fraudulent in the 1930s. Despite this, his literature continues to be published by the Ehret Literature Publishing Company, and his torch symbol remains the logo of the Ehret Health Club. His legacy is that of a pseudoscientific figure whose dietary claims persist in alternative health circles despite lacking evidence.

Did You Know?

• Ehret claimed he fasted for 105 days in total in 1909.
• He believed that white blood cells are caused by consuming mucus-forming foods.
• His Innerclean Intestinal Laxative was investigated and found fraudulent in the 1930s.
• Ehret stated that a mucus-free body never sweats.