Beatrice Trum Hunter, author of The Natural Foods Cookbook, "heralded as the nation's first healthful natural foods cookbook," died last Wednesday, the New York Times reported. She was 98.
"Inspired in high school by a book [100,000,000 Guinea Pigs by Arthur Kallet and Frederick J. Schlink] that described American consumers as unwitting guinea pigs for the food, pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries, Mrs. Hunter became an autodidactic apostle of whole grains, honey and vegetable oils as substitutes for refined flours, sugars and animal fats," the Times wrote.
Hunter published The Natural Foods Cookbook in 1961, and followed it with 37 other books, including Gardening Without Poisons and Our Toxic Legacy: How Lead, Mercury, Arsenic, and Cadmium Harm Our Health. She was also food editor of Consumers' Research Bulletin magazine and for a short time had a nutrition show on WGBH called "Beatrice Trum Hunter's Natural Foods."