Abundavita
From Kook Science
| Abundavita Corporation of America | |
|---|---|
| Formation | 1955 |
| Dissolution | 1965 |
| Legal status | Dissolved |
| Purpose/focus | Nutritional supplements |
| Headquarters | Long Beach, California |
| Founder | J. B. Jones |
Abundavita Corporation of America was a California-based nutritional supplement company, founded in 1955 by J. B. Jones, a student of Napoleon Hill, with the direct selling team headed by J. Earl Shoaff and Rich Schnackenberg, who together went on to found Nutri-Bio, a similar business. The company's principal offering was vitamin and mineral tablets, boasting as their main ingredient so-called Abundagreen, a "Hunza Base" of "Specially Prepared Selected Grasses Grown on the Hunza Farm in Natural Occurring Glacial Silt," promoted on the basis of the supposed longevity and healthfulness of the diet of the Hunzukut peoples of the Hunza Valley, the "Himalayan Shangri-la."[i]
There was, in addition to the U.S. corporation, a branch of Abundavita based in Canada, the Abundavita Corp. Can., Ltd., which operated on a similar direct sales basis.
In 1960, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration seized the company's products over the labeling claims that their products would "produce longevity and superb, perfect, and radiant health, happiness, hardihood, vigor, and good eyesight," as well as ensuring male virility until the age of 100, female beauty until age 80, curing autointoxication, and other similar boasts.[ii]
Press Coverage
- Rice, George (9 Mar. 1957), "'$250 A MONTH FOR HOUR PER DAY': 'Get-rich-quick' Offer Made by Food Supplement Concern", Minneapolis Star (Minneapolis, MN): 2, https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-minneapolis-star-250-a-month-for-h/147195475/
Advertising
- "A GUIDE TO BETTER HEALTH & HAPPINESS: ABUNDAVITA - THE WAY TO ABUNDANT LIVING", The Evening Sun (Hanover, PA): 7, 1 Jul. 1957, https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-evening-sun-a-guide-to-better-health/147195794/
- "WHY YOU CAN BELIEVE IN ABUNDAVITA", The Herington Times (Herington, KS): 16, 3 Apr. 1958, https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-herington-times-why-you-can-believe/147195329/
Notes
- ↑ Whitehorn Publishing Co., also owned by Jones, published Allen E. Banik and Renée Taylor's Hunza Land: The Fabulous Health and Youth Wonderland of the World (1960), featuring an introduction by Art Linkletter, as well as Taylor and Mulford J. Nobbs's later Hunza: The Himalayan Shangri-la (1962), both regarding expeditions to the Hunza Valley and the supposed healthful lifestyles of the Hunzukut peoples.
- ↑ https://fdanj.nlm.nih.gov/catalog/ddnj06217