Joyful is a former settlement and vegetarian colony in Kern County, California.[1][2] It was located 2 miles (3.2 km) southwest of Bakersfield, where Pennsylvania Lane now joins Ashe Road just north of Panama Lane.[1][3][4][5]
Californian fruit farmer Isaac B. Rumford and his wife Sara converted to a raw food vegetarian diet in 1881.[6] They advocated an "Edenic Diet" in which all animal foods were forbidden apart from honey. They held the view that "cooking destroys the vitality of the food, besides being a waste of labor and of time; it makes a slave of the one who cooks and shortens life."[6]
Joyful was founded by Rumford and his wife in early 1884 as a Utopian colony under the auspices of the Association of Brotherly Cooperation.[1][7] Joyful was located on the bank of Panama Slough, wetland adjacent to the Kern River that has been dry since before 1967.[8][3] Joyful was a vegetarian colony in which members followed a way of life influenced by the Biblical Adam and Eve before the Fall.[7] Members would eat a raw vegetarian diet of almonds, fruit juice, grated apples, raisins and a ground mix of oats and wheat called grainia.[6] They opposed cooking food as they believed it reduced nutritional value. Rumford and his wife founded the newspaper, Joyful News.[7] The Joyful post office operated from 1883 to 1884, when the colony was abandoned.[1] Although the other members abandoned the colony,Rumford continued to work as a fruit farmer with his family. In 1902 at age 68, Rumford wrote that his raw vegetarian diet consisted of starch foods such as dry flour with fruits and nuts.[9]
35°17′54″N 119°04′27″W / 35.2983°N 119.0742°W / 35.2983; -119.0742
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