Making contributions to our ongoing series Food Rebels. What are food rebels, individuals and groups who started, led or belonged to initiatives, that created and maintained successful food systems, cooperatives, and food sovereignty for traditionally marginalized communities. The Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad’s counsel on diet was blunt: learn to eat the right foods, because no one survives on poison. He urged followers to study his books on eating and, by doing so, to live longer. What we eat, and how often, shapes the length and quality of our lives—so ran Elijah Muhammad’s teaching on diet. He recommended sweetening food with a modest amount of honey rather than white sugar, and he allowed chicken so long as the bird had been raised in clean conditions on wholesome feed such as corn and oats. A vegetarian or vegan diet, he said, worked just as well. He urged followers to eat real butter and to avoid heavily processed margarine and other substitutes.
