Lelord Kordel (1904 – 2001) was a Polish American nutritionist and author of books on healthy living.
Born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1904, Lelord Kordel emigrated with his parents to the United States as a child and grew up in Chicago, where his father worked as a baker. After university studies in Chicago, Kordel returned to Poland to continue his studies at the University of Krakow. After completion of his Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1930, he worked for two years as a scientific instructor and then took up a position as a research assistant to the British physician Sir William Arbuthnot-Lane, whose theories influenced his career as a nutritionist.
When Kordel returned to America in the early 1930s, he opened the California Nutrition Clinic in Beverly Hills. As an independent researcher and industry consultant, he developed programs for healthy living and pioneered concepts for dietary supplementation. During World War II, he conducted and supervised seminars on nutrition for the war effort and was active in the “Food and Nutrition for Victory” programs, for which he earned several awards.
After the war, Kordel began writing books on healthy living and nutrition. Kordel's titles include Health the Easy Way (1946), Health Through Nutrition (1950), Eat and Grow Younger (1952), Eat Your Troubles Away (1955), Cook Right – Live Longer (1962), Natural Folk Remedies (1972), Eat and Grow Slender (1977), How to Keep Your Youthful Vitality After Forty, and The Easy, Low-Cost Way to Total Beauty, (Putnam Publishing Group, 1979, ISBN 0-399-11914-0). An early book, Herbal Highlights, was copyrighted by Lelord Kordel Lectures in 1941. He created a health product company in 1949, Kordel’s Nutritionals.
While living in Detroit, Michigan, Kordel traveled widely to educate the public on nutrition and balanced diets. His teachings and formulations gained a wide circle of followers, including film stars such as Zsa Zsa Gabor, Eva Gabor, Gloria Swanson and Raquel Welch, who sought his advice on staying healthy and looking well.