Beatrice Trum Hunter

Beatrice Josephine Trum Hunter (December 16, 1918 – May 17, 2017) was an American natural foods campaigner and writer.

Biography

Hunter was born on December 16, 1918, in Brooklyn to Gabriel Trum, who worked as a silk cutter in a dyeing plant, and the former Martha Engle. Hunter was educated at Richmond Hill High School in Queens and graduated from Brooklyn College in 1940 with a B.A. in English literature.

Hunter was food editor of Consumers' Research Bulletin magazine. Hunter was one of the earliest opponents of pesticides. She sent some of her research to Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring.

Hunter promoted a diet rich in fruit, vegetables and whole grains. She took interest in environmental issues and donated of land to the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests. However, the book sold well and became a classic in the natural and organic foods movement. It was heralded as the "nation's first healthful natural foods cookbook".

Hunter's Consumer Beware was recommended by a reviewer in the Journal of Consumer Affairs as she documented her charges with references to research that supports tips one can apply to avoid dangerous food products.

Her book Food Additives and Federal Policy received a mixed review in the American Scientist magazine. The reviewer described it as a "rather disjointed but nonetheless informative, account of the toxicological hazards of food additives, this book builds up to a climax that underlines the inadequacies of our testing procedures, the failure of the regulatory agencies to endure the safety of food additives, and the undue influence of industry in pressuring regulatory agencies, through committees and other devices, to maintain their products on the market with a minimum of testing." It was positively reviewed in the Ecology Law Quarterly as a "calm chronicler of scientific exploration into what man, the food producer, creates and into what man, the consumer, ingests."

Selected publications