Philip M. Lovell

Philip M. Lovell (2 May 1895 – 6 September 1978) was an American naturopath and architectural patron best known for Lovell House and Lovell Beach House. He campaigned for natural foods, sunbathing and a vegetarian diet but was staunchly opposed to the use of medicines.

Career

Lovell was born Morris Saperstein in New York City. In the early 1920s, he quit is job in insurance and left New York to study at the American School of Osteopathy where he earned a degree. Saperstein moved to Los Angeles and reinvented himself as Philip M. Lovell. Lovell joined the California Avocado Association and proclaimed the avocado "a food concentrate much more sustainable than meat". He authored Diet for Health by Natural Methods in 1927 which advocated a vegetarian diet and sample menus for ailments and conditions. The book advocated for a naturopathic philosophy based on vitalism. Lovell advocated for a vegetarian diet but only if it was based on unprocessed foods. He criticized vegetarians who consumed processed cereal products, cakes, cookies, jams, sugars and soft drinks. In a 1941 article he stated that a diet based on a limited amount of unprocessed meat with vegetables is preferable to a processed vegetarian diet based on cakes and sugars. He believed that cancer was largely driven by food adulteration and commented that "vegetarians seldom seem to have cancer if the foods are washed thoroughly".

Lovell was supportive of John and Vera Richter's raw food vegetarian restaurant, the Eutropheon. He lectured on how to prepare "unfired foods".

Personal life

He married Leah Press in 1923.

Selected publications