By Associated Press, 7/6/2001
BROOKLINE - Aveline Kushi, a leader of the health food movement who helped found one of the nation's first natural food stores, died Tuesday of cancer. She was 78.
With her husband, Michio, the Japanese-born Ms. 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.
In a telephone interview yesterday, Michio Kushi said his wife's influence was enormous. ''She is the originator of the natural food movement in America. Even the word `natural food,' she chose to use that,'' he said.
''The people who began the movement and who are leading the movement have lost their symbol and inspiration,'' he said.
Christine Akbar, a Kushi family spokeswoman, said Ms. Kushi underwent traditional radiation therapy after learning she had cancer of the cervix nine years ago. When the cancer spread to her bones, she was told there was no other conventional treatment available, Akbar said. Ms. Kushi relied on acupuncture and other Eastern medicines and the cancer was in remission for several years.
Among her books are ''Aveline Kushi's Complete Guide to Macrobiotic Cooking'' and ''Macrobiotic Cancer Prevention Cookbook.''
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 Brookline shop named for a utopian novel by British philosopher Samuel Butler. She shortly afterward opened a branch in Los Angeles. In 1983, she sold the company, which had become one of the nation's largest natural food chains.
Born in Yokota, Japan, she came to the United States in 1951.
''When we first arrived in this beautiful country over three decades ago, there was almost no good food,'' she wrote in her autobiography, ''Aveline: The Life and Dream of the Woman Behind Macrobiotics Today.'' ''We would have to make wonderful food available to everybody ourselves.''
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. The Massachusetts school moved to Becket in 1990.
Besides her husband, she leaves four sons, Arnold of North Carolina, Lawrence of New York, Phillip of Becket, and Hisao of California; seven brothers and sisters, Miyako Okada, Makoto Yokoyama, Atsumi Mimura, and Junko Asano, all of Japan, Kyu Yokoyama of New York, Yoko Kendall of Worthington, and Masaru Yokoyama of Texas; and 13 grandchildren.
Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. Monday
in the First Unitarian Church in Brookline. Burial will be private.
This story ran on page B7 of the Boston Globe on 7/6/2001.
© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.
The Kushi Family asks that in
lieu of flowers, please send donations to:
Aveline Kushi Memorial Fund
P.O. Box 7
198 Leland Road
Becket, Massachusetts 01223
413-623-5741