ABSTRACT
In August 1965, the paper first printed a regular column entitled How to eat to live, which Elijah Muhammad urged readers to clip for easy reference. Muhammad collected and reprinted these lessons in a two-volume manual likewise titled How to Eat to Live, published in 1967 and 1972, which, at the height of soul food's popularity, offered the clearest evidence of the role of food politics in the Nation's vision of black liberation. In addition to teaching followers how to eat to live, Nation of Islam food laws created a need for new black-owned businesses that respected and catered to the exacting guidelines espoused by Muhammad. Despite the Nation's often scathing critiques of white capitalism and the white-run government bodies that served its imperatives, Muhammad's work was in fact widely lauded, not only by non-Muslim blacks but also increasingly by white interests and institutions.
