Patricia Bragg, born to carry on her fathers Health Crusade · Patricia Bragg, born to carry ... But it was the Bragg Health Crusades that ... an early inspiration in his health education.

Patricia Bragg comes into a room like a tent-revival preacher spreading the gospel of good health. You would never guess she is chief executive of a large health and wellness company famous for its celebrity and prominent clientele and worldwide health crusades.

Within minutes of arriving in the conference room at Bragg Health Products and Books in Santa Barbara, Calif., she announces that her favorite color is pink and that she always wears a hat because actor Jack Lord – “you know, from Hawaii Five-0” – once told her: “Patricia, you may be only 5 feet tall, but if you wear a hat you will be 6 feet tall.”

She demonstrates exercises that have kept her feminine physique firm and youthful, and marches around the room, pumping her arms and legs like a drum major, drilling a visitor on the four pumps of the heart: “Your two arms and your two legs. I always stand tall, walk tall and sit tall,” she says, chin high, pink flip-flops slapping the floor.

Health Crusader like her father“I’m a health and life coach. I love it, live it

and preach it,” she chants as she finally settles on a couch, both feet planted on the floor. “Never cross your legs, we’re not meant to sit like a pretzel and cut off vital circulation.”

Although her words and actions may seem random, they’re as scripted as a Sunday sermon. Virtually everything Bragg does is

part of her crusade as a health missionary – ”saving souls physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.” Their marketing department put her face on the cover of the Bragg Health Books and on every bottle of Bragg Liquid Aminos and Apple Cider Vinegar sold by the company her father, Paul Bragg, founded in 1912. Her voice is as familiar as a mother’s to the millions of listeners of her wellness radio shows, but she reveals precious little about herself that doesn’t relate to Bragg Health Crusade. Ask her age, she throws her arms wide, joyously declares, “I’m ageless,” quickly turning the subject to another topic: celebrity devotees of the Bragg Healthy Lifestyle. “Tom Selleck says I keep him 39. The Beach Boys are ageless – they’ve followed us for over 40 years.” Even to her close friends, she’s an enigma. “I’ve known her for over 30 years. She has a big heart, loves people, but I don’t think she’s taken a whole lot of time for Patricia the woman. All her energy goes into helping and healing people,” says Paul Wenner, founder of Gardenburger and a fan of all things Bragg. Seeing a Bragg Crusade and reading their books cured him of his asthma when he was a teenager and Paul Bragg set him on his life’s health path.

“Patricia’s a gifted crusader, like a little medicinal butterfly going from f lower to flower. She continually shares the Bragg health knowledge with everyone!”

It’s impossible to understand Patricia Bragg without knowing the story of her father. Not only was Paul Bragg responsible for his daughter’s physical existence, he also shaped her emotional, spiritual and mental character. Even years after his death, he is still a daily influence on his daughter. “Dad said . . . “ is one of Patricia’s most frequent phrases. “I believe my dad was on the right track about everything,” she says. “I’m very thankful he was my dad, my buddy, my mentor, my leader, my teacher, my angel.” To Patricia’s friends, her regard for her father is nothing short of reverence. “When she saw the impact he had on people worldwide promoting what we call today ‘alternative medicine,’ the admiration they had for him, the success stories of the prominent people he helped, she was in awe of him,” says Bobby McGee, former owner of House of Health Natural Foods store in Honolulu and a friend of Patricia’s since 1967.

Paul Wenner says, “She became him. If someone made a movie of her life, Paul would be the shadow behind her – he’s talking and she’s moving.”

When Paul C. Bragg was a teenager he was diagnosed with tuberculosis. After his third T.B. Sanitarium, he developed an eating, breathing and exercising program that restored his health (see pg. 4 “How to Live The Bragg Healthy Lifestyle”). He credited God for much of his newfound vigor and made a pledge that he would spend the rest of his life showing others how to achieve this “super health” and he did!

He wasted little time. According to Patricia, her father founded Bragg Live Foods in 1912, and originated and named the first Health Food Store in Los Angeles in the 1920s, launched Health Builder magazine in the 1930s, helped found the National Nutritional Foods Assoc. in 1936, and hosted the “Health and Happiness” Hollywood TV show with

Reprint from the Natural Foods Merchandiser

Blessings for a dynamic, long, healthy life! Paul and Patricia Bragg, era 1960’s postcard.

Patricia received Natural Legacy Award, given to only 2 people in Health Industry yearly

Patricia Bragg, ND, PhD, with Bill Galt, founder Good Earth Restaurants & Paul Wenner, Creator Gardenburger at Natural Food Expo, Anaheim, Patricia received coveted Natural Legacy Award for her lifelong dedication to health worldwide.

Patricia Bragg, born to carry on her father’s Health Crusade

Patricia in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Along the way, he and Patricia wrote many books: Bragg Healthy Lifestyle, Build Powerful Nerve Force, Apple Cider Vinegar, Healthy Heart, Miracle of Fasting, Super Power Breathing, Bragg Back Fitness Program, Water: The Shocking Truth, Build Strong Healthy Feet and Vegetarian Health Recipes – all life improvers!

But it was the Bragg Health Crusades that garnered the most attention. “We’d go into a town and have posters put all over town that said ‘Free Health Crusade.’ People would flock to them; they loved them,” Patricia says. “When we came to town, we gave the health food stores the biggest sales they ever had.”

As a teenager suffering from asthma, Wenner attended a Bragg Health Crusade, or as he calls it, “Paul’s tent revival,” in 1965 in Portland, Oregon. “It was kind of like a religious festival – loud talking, excitement, singing. Paul had this built-in ability to see the best and most incredible aspects of people, and they responded.”

Handsome and tanned, with wavy, movie-star hair, Paul Bragg would run on stage, plant his feet wide and begin his sermon. Fitness guru Jack LaLanne, who was a skinny, sickly, pimply 15-year-old when he attended his first Bragg Crusade in the late 1920s, has never forgotten what Paul Bragg said that day: “It matters not what your present age is or what your physical condition is. If you obey nature’s laws, you can be born again!” Jack was!

Pictures show Paul Bragg with his arms thrown out, embracing rooms full of congregants. “He was so gung ho and energetic,” remembers Kathryn Matheson, owner of Full of Life Natural Foods Market and Restaurant in Burbank, Calif. “People like him who have a strong, dedicated personality are natural salesmen. When you have fire in your belly, you can sell what you believe in.” LaLanne agrees. “He sold me!”

His showmanship wasn’t too shoddy, either. Bill Galt, (inspired by Bragg) founded Good Earth Restaurants, remembers: “Paul had this big pot on stage. He’d put three processed, refined meals that the average American eats everyday into the pot – white bread, refined sugar, Coke, hot dogs, fried foods, coffee, meat, etc. Then he’d stir it up and shout:” “Who’s ready to eat? Folks, that’s what you’re putting in your body.”

Millions of people around the world (every major U.S. city and worldwide) became disciples of The Bragg Healthy Lifestyle after those crusades. Biochemist pioneer, Jeffrey Bland says the Braggs were an early inspiration in his health education. Dr. Henry Heimlich and Foot Dr. Scholl were Bragg fans. Patricia says her father inspired thousands to become health store owners, world-wide, including founders of Trader Joe’s and GNC – “Dad was lecturing in Pittsburgh,” and asked: “Who wants to have the first health store in all Pennsylvania? We’ll stock it with all Bragg Health Products on consignment,” says Patricia, arms spread wide, imitating her father’s booming voice. “And that was Lackzoom Yogurt Shop in 1935, which later became GNC chain.” Paul inspired people world-wide to open health stores and helped them get started.

The Bragg Health Crusades Spreads the WordPage 2

A thousand Happy Bragg Health Students enjoy hiking, exercise and the fresh air on the trail to

Mt. Hollywood, CA, summer of 1932.

Actress Gloria Swanson became a devotee when

she was 18 and often crusaded with Paul Bragg.

House of Health’s McGee says that in the 1960s, “Paul was like a guru to those of us that got into vitamin and mineral food supplements instead of drugs.”

Then there were the celebrity Bragg followers. “Samuel Goldwyn called up my father and asked him to speak to his actresses. He said, ‘These young girls are staying up all night partying and they’re so tired, I can hardly make a movie,’” Patricia says, most of the girls ignored the Bragg teachings, but one was mesmerized: the 18-year-old Gloria Swanson, who became a strong Health Fan and occasionally joined Paul on The Bragg Health Crusades.

Soon Bragg became a celebrity himself, remembers Joe Bassett of Bassett’s Health Foods in Toledo, Ohio (a former president of National Nutritional Foods Association for Health Stores, which Bragg founded). “He and the other health food guys were like Rock Stars. When they walked into a Hollywood restaurant, even the movie stars knew who they were. Jack LaLanne is the last of the guys around who were like that.”

“I like to say Paul Bragg inspired them and I perspired them,” Jack LaLanne says.

Birth of a Health MissionaryA fifth-generation Californian, where her

mother’s family settled before 1849, Patricia remembers an idyllic healthy childhood in California. “I didn’t know murder, didn’t know the word ‘rape,’ didn’t hear swearing or never anything negative,” she says.

She grew up in a house where “people would go look in our cupboards for aspirin, coffee, white bread and sugar, and they wouldn’t find them. I never had a Coke. My dad taught me to see a skull and crossbones on Coca-Cola bottles and all bad foods.”

She once ate a Hershey bar, “but I got a terrible sore throat. I knew it was a sin,” she says. Same with alcohol. “When I was 23, I drank a glass of champagne at a wedding, and I threw up,” she says. My dad said, “You’re allergic to alcohol. It also dulls the brain and memory and pickles the liver.”

She’s never shaved her legs, painted her fingernails or worn makeup (occasionally only lipstick – “After 60, I just needed a little help,” she says). Her father advised her to never wear a bra because it impedes circulation. But “everything still stands up by itself,” she says proudly, demonstrating the pectoral exercises she does three times a day in two-minute sessions. She’s never

Patricia in her garden of flowers.

See Bragg Health Books on web: www.bragg.com

Patricia and father Paul leaving Hawaii for Tahiti and world trip in 1956.

Early Bragg Soy Product back in the 1930’s.

Page 3Patricia’s Motherly Approach is Loving and Persuasive

Paul C. Bragg and Duke Kahanamoku,

Waikiki Beach, 1920. Olympic swimmer who

taught Paul how to surf. His wife Nadine was

Patricia’s Godmother.

pierced her ears (“It exposes nerve endings”) and doesn’t wear a wristwatch because it can slow and even cut off circulation.

She never had the desire to rebel against her father’s teachings and sneak a cigarette or even an aspirin. “I always knew the consequence of living an unhealthy lifestyle is sickness! You pay for your sins,” she says.

“Patricia lives what she sells,” says Matheson of Full of Life Natural Foods Market. “I’ve been with some pretty high-falutin’ people in the health food business, and I’ve seen them smoking and drinking. That’s not Health Crusader Patricia Bragg.”

Bragg’s childhood nickname was “Busy Lizzie.” “I was very active – I was playing tennis and piano when I was 5; I’ve been gardening since I was 5. I danced ballet and jazz. I always had super energy,” she says. Demonstrating that more than 65 years later she’s still worthy of the “Busy Lizzie” nickname, she leaps off the couch and begins jogging in place. “If you get up and bounce around, you massage 70 trillion cells, and good circulation is one of the keys to good health,” she says as she races around the room barefoot, pink sweatpants flapping and pink cowboy hat bobbing.

When a youngster, Patricia began attending the boarding school she would graduate from – the Mary Wallace School in Piedmont, California. Others might be lonely or scared to leave home at a young age, but not Patricia. “I had my own vegetable and flower garden plots. The school was my second home, I loved being there,” she says. After college, she then taught kindergarten at the boarding school for a year. “I took little monsters and made them little angels. I taught them what’s right, what’s wrong, how to sing and dance, exercise, read, paint, and grow vegetables and flowers. I taught them healthy habits and never to say swear words! What comes out of your mouth is living – words are living.” Bragg is so opposed to swearing that she forbids it among her employees, and once fired a woman for cursing on the job.

Patricia Loves CrusadingDuring her school years, Bragg dreamed

of being a Baptist missionary in Africa like her cousins. But when 18, her father approached her with an idea. “He said, ‘I want you, in time, to be a health missionary. Just give me one year.’ “ Paul Bragg wasn’t the type to take no for an answer. “The only person I’ve met who is stronger than Paul is Bill Clinton,” says Gardenburger’s Creator.

“When you are around someone so strong-minded, so controlled, you realize you don’t change people like that. You do what they want.” So Patricia took her place in the Bragg Crusades. She quickly discovered she loved being a Health Crusader and spreading Bragg Healthy Lifestyle with thousands at the Crusades nine months a year. “My dad said I was his left and right hand and we were like two peas in a pod. Sometimes he said he even knew what I was thinking.”

During the long years she worked with her father, she was right there assisting him on the Bragg Health Crusades world-wide, appearing on the Bragg TV show, “Health & Happiness from Hollywood” and helping to write the Bragg Health Books. “They were always a team,” recalls Matheson. “When you looked at them, you would see only two people headed in the same direction, and as he slowed, she gently took over. She was born to do his work and carry on Bragg Crusades.” Also the Bragg Longer Life Exercise Club at Waikiki Beach has been going 6 days a week from 9 - 10:30 at Fort DeRussy Lawn for over 40 years. Thousands have attended and learned the health benefits of exercise.

Matheson remembers Patricia in those days as “beautiful, with long, blond hair and very tan.” LaLanne described her as a “devoted health crusader,” she never married. She was engaged at one point, but her fiance died in an accident a week before the wedding. Since then, “I have had many wonderful men friends, but I just can’t get around to thinking about marriage,” she says. House of Health’s McGee, regards Patricia as his little sister, says, “She had many opportunities to marry, but she’s never found the right one. I told her, ‘You admired your father so much, it’s impossible for other’s to compare favorably with him.’”

Although her friends believe Patricia’s personality is as vibrant as her father’s, they also agree it’s not as forceful. “Paul was a little tougher in his approach—he’d literally challenge you and say you’re going to die if you don’t change,” Good Earth’s Galt says. Patricia recounts that when she joined the Bragg Crusade, my dad said, “Just don’t be too tough – don’t hit them over the head with a big stick.” He’d say, “Patricia, remember: go slow and speak softly from your heart.”

“I saw Paul Bragg when he was 92, and he was singing songs, vibrant, full of life. You would think he had another 25 years left,” says Sandy Gooch Lederman, founder of Mrs. Gooch’s Health Stores, Los Angeles area. She thanks the Bragg Crusades for her

fulfilling health career. “Patricia observed and patterned herself after his attributes. She’s a character, a little health fire-ball.”

Patricia’s approach to health crusading is more motherly, but just as persuasive as Paul’s. “She never stops talking health,” Galt says. “If you’re eating with her in a restaurant, she’ll find a way to go over to another table and strike up a conversation about health. We were on a cruise together, and before it was over, all the crew had Bragg Health Books.” Wenner adds: “If she’s at a gathering, she’ll go to every person and give them some information about being healthier. She doesn’t miss a person. Patricia gets them moving in the right direction. She truly changes lives, one person at a time.”

Paul Bragg on Merv Griffin TV Show, 1976

Patricia with lifesaver – famous Dr. Henry Heimlich

Patricia with Hollywood Actress Jane Russell Patricia with Arthur Godfrey

on his 80th birthday

Birthday gathering

for Elaine LaLanne.

In picture:

Elaine LaLanne,

Patricia Bragg

in center with

Jack LaLanne.

Bragg Health Crusades is Patricia’s Sharing Gift WorldwidePage 4

Patricia relies heavily on celebrity stories to get her point across, tantalizing listeners with tidbits such as: “Steve Jobs told me that he’s been reading the Bragg Health Books since high school and he admires our Health Crusades, or JC Penney – a kind, wonderful, brilliant man, so humble – told me we all have human angels. ‘You’re a human angel and so’s your dad,’ he said.” She talks about lunches she’s had with Jane Russell and how she taught Clint Eastwood to stand up straight. She rhapsodizes about how The Dalai Lama, Donald Trump and Tony Robbins love Bragg Liquid Aminos. She talks about famous people and celebrities, she leaves little time for questions about herself.

But like most things Patricia does, name-dropping serves a greater good. “Other people are a witness, just like in the Bible, which gives stories of things that actually happened,” she says. People can more easily relate to a celebrity health story than a nutrition textbook, she believes. Galt adds, “If you talk about famous people, there’s something that hooks people into listening. People are wrapped up with famous people and the Hollywood Star Syndrome today.”

She’s Still Crusading & Loving It To Promote A Healthier WorldBragg Live Foods pioneered and produced

365 products in its Burbank plant. Bragg introduced the first Health Products: whole 7-grain crackers and cereals, herbal teas, date sweetener, honey, raw nuts and dried fruits, vitamin and mineral food supplements, amino acids, health candies and health cosmetics and more. The company had offices in California, London, Australia, and New Zealand.

“A lot of big corporations, including WR Grace and Kroger, wanted to buy us, but we were not for sale,” she says. At the same time, “Our attorney said it would kill me to keep all 365 products.” Patricia culled it down to her favorites: Bragg’s Liquid Aminos, olive oil, salad dressings, seasonings and apple-cider vinegar made with nutrient-packed “mother” enzymes found naturally in Bragg Vinegar. She also introduced her Organic Apple Cider Vinegar Drinks. She kept the company’s Health Science division, which publishes Bragg Health Books that she updates yearly. And she continues Bragg Health Crusades, lecturing schools, women’s and church groups, prisons, corporate gatherings and a host of other organizations around the world. “Spreading health is my life crusade,” she says. “It gives you a real purpose in life to be needed, to be a Bragg Health Crusader!”

Today, Bragg crusades mainly through radio talk shows, recording as many as five a day. For a woman who has been around the world 30 times, leaving home isn’t as much fun as it once was. Still, she frequently visits her organic macadamia nut farm in Maui and her organic farm in Australia that grows 30 varieties of tropical fruits. She has properties around California, many inherited from her mother’s family, which produce the ingredients for Bragg products. The Bragg headquarters is located on a 120-acre organic farm in Santa Barbara, Calif., and she lives in a 115-year-old farm-house. Patricia is surrounded by 250 rosebushes, the house is aptly named “Patricia’s Rose Cottage,” and is decorated with cheerful floral prints and family mementos and pictures of their pets.

Like her father, Patricia has a Ph.D. – and a Doctor of Naturopathy degree, which she earned in her 20s from Bernadine University. She continues to keep updated on health, incorporating new studies into “Bragg Books that talk for us,” she says. The old walnut barn at her farm, houses her father’s library with thousands of titles. Subjects include flowers, organic gardening, motherhood and babies, allopathic medicine, self-help, ageing, happiness, psychology, health and healing, poetry, cookbooks and the classics.

She applies new health research to Bragg Books and Products. “In the Bragg Sprinkle, Patricia picked out every one of the 24

herbs and spices,” says Bragg Chief Officer. Sandy Gooch adds, “You could always trust Bragg Health Products. Paul did his research, and really believed in his products.”

Patricia also devotes time to charitable causes funded by the Bragg Health Institute. “Not many people know how much she does for charity,” Galt says. “She put up the seed money graciously for Friends of the Animals International and set up a Mexican spaying and neutering program where U.S. vets train Mexican vets. She also funds research with botanicals for alternative cancer solutions.”

Her CPA says “Bragg Health Institute gives scholarships for training health-minded future doctors and gives money to everything from church camps, charities to wheelchair athletes. She has agape love for world health and peace and for all of us.”

For Bragg, giving back to others is a mission. You put your life to a daily test and you ask, “What are you doing to help mankind?” she says. “Sometimes people just have to have someone open the door and tell them – have a purpose! Remember it’s up to you if it’s to be – to have either sickness or super health!”

“I contemplate the mystical beauty of the universe, that indefinable miracle that is my relationship to man, nature, and God.”

– Paul C. Bragg, ND, PhD.Awaken Health & Happiness, written 1937

For more inspiration visit twitter.com/patriciabragg

See & hear Bragg Lectures, Radio & TV Shows & Learn more Health Teachings on: Bragg.com. View daily Class on: BraggHawaiiExercise.com

3 Don’t eat refined sugar, salty foods, white rice, white flour, fried foods, saturated fats or hydrogenated oils, coffee or caffeinated teas, sodas and drinks, pork, smoked fish and smoked meats, and all foods preserved with salt, sugar and chemicals.

3 Do allow - 5 hours between meals so the digestive system has time to work, before eating more food. Savor and chew food thoroughly.

3 Don’t eat a big breakfast because it’s too difficult for the body to digest. Fresh fruit and blender energy pep drinks are excellent.

3 Drink 8 glasses distilled or purified water daily, add 2 tsps Bragg Vinegar to 3 of them.

3 Do fast one day a week to cleanse and detoxify your body system to help stay healthier.

3 Don’t drink cow’s milk and its products.

3 Do enjoy early or late gentle sunshine regularly, it has germ-killing and healing energy.

3 It’s best to get your protein from healthy vegetarian plant sources instead of meat.

3 Do make sure you have regular bowel movements (ample water, salads, etc. help).

3 Don’t rely on enemas or high colonics unless sick or have extreme constipation.

3 Do exercise regularly, walk, swim, bike, etc.

3 Don’t “self-drug”; correct your problems with living The simple Bragg Healthy Lifestyle.

3 Do think positively and cultivate health, cheerfulness, happiness, kindness, charity and the love of family and brotherhood.

3 Don’t neglect your sleep, get 8 hours nightly.

3 Practice deep breathing throughout the day and maintain good posture – sit and walk tall.

3 Do make every effort to improve yourself physical ly, mental ly, emotionally and spiritually, faithfully every day! – 3 John 2

How to Live The Bragg Healthy Lifestyle

You are what you eat, drink, breathe, think, say and do! – Patricia Bragg, ND, PhD.

ROF 312

The Bragg Healthy Lifestyle has many wise components. Here is a list of important Do’s and Don’ts that Health Pioneer, Paul C. Bragg developed and daughter Patricia Bragg practices and preaches: