Jerome Irving Rodale had a lifelong passion for healthy living. He promoted organic food in the 1940s when most people didn’t even know what the term “organic farming” meant. He published the Organic Farming and Gardening magazine and, in 1950, he founded Prevention magazine which focused on preventing disease through a healthy lifestyle. (Rodale’s health and wellness publications also included Men’s Health, Women’s Health, Runner’s World, and Bicycling).
In 1971, Jerome Rodale appeared on “The Dick Cavett Show”. In front of the cameras, the godfather of natural health boasted, “I never felt better in my life! I’ve decided to live to be a hundred”. He went on, “I’m going to live to be 100, unless I’m run down by some sugar-crazed taxi driver.” After a commercial break, Cavett interviewed his other guest. During the interview, the talk show host and his second guest realised that “Mr Organic” had become unresponsive. At the age of 72 years, minutes after extolling the benefits of his dietary beliefs and predicting his longevity, Rodale had suffered a fatal heart attack on the show.
Head Over Heals 