Joyful is a former settlement and

vegetarian Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slaughter. Vegetariani ...

colony in

Kern County Kern County is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 909,235. Its county seat is Bakersfield. Kern County comprises the Bakersfield, California, Metropolitan statistical area. The county sp ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

. It was located southwest of Bakersfield, where Pennsylvania Lane now joins Ashe Road just north of Panama Lane.

History

Californian fruit farmer Isaac B. Rumford and his wife Sara converted to a

raw food Raw foodism, also known as rawism or a raw food diet, is the dietary practice of eating only or mostly food that is uncooked and unprocessed. Depending on the philosophy, or type of lifestyle and results desired, raw food diets may include ...

vegetarian diet in 1881. They advocated an "Edenic Diet" in which all animal foods were forbidden apart from

honey Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of plants (primar ...

. 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." Joyful was founded by Rumford and his wife in early 1884 as a Utopian colony under the auspices of the Association of Brotherly Cooperation. Joyful was located on the bank of Panama Slough, wetland adjacent to the Kern River that has been dry since before 1967. Joyful was a vegetarian colony in which members followed a way of life influenced by the Biblical

Adam and Eve Adam and Eve, according to the creation myth of the Abrahamic religions, were the first man and woman. They are central to the belief that humanity is in essence a single family, with everyone descended from a single pair of original ancestors. ...

before the Fall. Members would eat a raw vegetarian diet of almonds, fruit juice, grated apples,

raisin A raisin is a dried grape. Raisins are produced in many regions of the world and may be eaten raw or used in cooking, baking, and brewing. In the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, and Australia, the word ''raisin'' is reserved for the ...

s and a ground mix of

oat The oat (''Avena sativa''), sometimes called the common oat, is a species of cereal grain grown for its seed, which is known by the same name (usually in the plural, unlike other cereals and pseudocereals). While oats are suitable for human con ...

s and

wheat Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...

called grainia. They opposed cooking food as they believed it reduced nutritional value. Rumford and his wife founded the newspaper, ''Joyful News''. The Joyful post office operated from 1883 to 1884, when the colony was abandoned. 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.

History

References

Further reading