Essie Honiball

Biography

Early life

Essie Honiball was born Esther Maria Wiese, in Edenburg, Orange Free State, South Africa. She attended Orange Girl High School in Bloemfontein, before studying at the Universities of Stellenbosch and Orange Free State, where she graduated in Biology (B.s.c.), Physical Education (Performers Licentitate) and Music (piano). She then travelled to Europe to continue her Physical Education studies in the Netherlands, Denmark and London.

Later life

After teaching Physical Education at schools in South Africa, Honiball lectured in health and biology education at the Cape Town Training College and at the Pretoria Normal College in Physical Education. She also served as Assistant Head of the Elizabeth Conradie School for disabled children.

Illness

A keen swimmer, she became a junior diving champion of Orange Free State, and a senior diving champion of Western Province (in the Western Cape) in 1946. However, in 1958, Honiball became very ill with tuberculosis and was hospitalized in Kimberley, Northern Cape. Although the illness disappeared, Honiball failed to regain her strength and fell into depression. After hearing of the healing power of fruits by a friend, the author Cornelius Valkenburg de Villiers-Dreyer, whom she married in 1959, and influenced by the writings of South African author Johanna Brandt, she recovered from her condition. When her husband died in 1962, Honiball went on to marry, T. O. Honiball in 1973, a notable cartoonist for The Burger (South Africa) and its magazines.

Rebirth

After withdrawing from normal life, and adopting a fruit diet (fruits, berries, nuts, seeds, and sometimes vegetables) which she later described in her book I Live On Fruit, she felt transformed, acquiring a healthy body, new outlook on life and new lifestyle, to the surprise of her family and friends. Inspired by the results she had obtained, Honiball initiated the Hokaai! Movement with Herma Loubsa, establishing clubs in different regions of South Africa. The club members, known as Hokaaiers, met every year to attend lectures about the fruit diet and relax in natural surroundings.

Scientific studies

In 1971, Essie Honiball participated in a rare scientific study into the fruitarian diet, conducted by B. J. Meyer, Dean of the Faculty of Basic Medical Science at the University of Pretoria, who was investigating this diet from 1969 to 1973 in co-operation with the Council for Atomic Research and the Medical Research Council. The results were referenced in the South African Medical Journal and in Professor Meyer's book "Fruit For Thought". Meyer described how lipid profiles and glucose tolerances improved on a particular fruitarian diet, and how his earlier tests on a 45-year-old teacher (Honiball) who claimed she had eaten only fruits for the past 12 years, showed her to be in ‘excellent health’.

Writings

Honiball went on to write several books about her experiences with the fruit diet which were published in Afrikaans and some in English including I Live On Fruit, I Live On Fruit And Nothing Else, and, A Fruit Eater Is Born, which documented 50 years of her life’s work and experiences with diet. According to her writings, she sustained an exclusive fruitarian diet, for a period of 20 years without break, and has continued with the fruitarian diet throughout her life. In 2010, her books Ek leef van vrugte and I Live On Fruit will be updated and republished by Benedic Books.

Biography

In 2010, well-known South African author Anoeschka von Meck, signed an agreement with Benedic Books for the writing of Essie Honiball's biography. Initially the book will be published in Afrikaans with the title: Essie Honiball: Die Ontwaking, and later translated into English with the title: Essie Honiball: The Awakening. The Afrikaans edition is scheduled for release at the end of 2010, and the English edition, at the beginning of 2011.

Legacy

Honiball is one of a series of latter-20th century writers who writes about fruitarianism, raw nutrition, fasting and detoxification. She has produced a series of 12 books in Afrikaans and English, about the fruit diet and is featured in the book Stellenbosch Writers by Rosemarie Breuer. She is also cited in Raw Knowledge: Enhancing The Powers of the Mind, Body and Soul, by health author, Paul Nison. In 2002, Morris Krok, republished her book I Live On Fruit. The high fruit, low fat and all raw diet, which Honiball promotes has been referred to in the writings of health authors including Anne Osborne, Brian R. Clement Ph.D, Dr. Douglas Graham, and Viktoras Kulvinskas. She received an honorary certificate from Orange Girl High School, Bloemfontein, in 2006.

Criticisms

Honiball's fruitarian diet consisted of fruits, berries, nuts and seeds. Health writers including Robert Gray, Arnold Ehret, Morris Krok and Johnny Lovewisdom, have described how nuts and seeds are not botanically fruits, and too concentrated to form part of the optimum fruitarian diet.

Publications

Afrikaans

English