Fad Diets through the Years: Part One -10 Fad Diets Before 1950
Ah, how we love our quick fixes in America – and we have a long history of trying out “miracle” weight loss techniques, as illustrated by the timeline below:
Vinegar and water diet (1820): This diet is said to be “Lord Byron’s,” who is known to have been anorexic and bulimic. It is exactly what it sound like – subsisting solely on water and vinegar.
The Graham diet (1830): This diet was developed by the Presbyterian minister Sylvester Graham who believed that meat, white bread, and alcohol led to sin. He developed the graham cracker to fight unpure thoughts.
Banting’s “low carbohydrate diet” (1863): This became popular when the carpenter said that he had lost one pound a week by changing his diet to this:
• For breakfast, four or five ounces (oz) of beef, mutton, kidneys, broiled fish, bacon, or cold meat of any kind except pork; a large cup of tea (without milk or sugar); a fit tie biscuit, or one ounce of dry toast.
• For dinner, five or six oz of any fish except salmon, any meat except pork, any vegetable except potato, one oz of dry toast, fruit out of a pudding, any kind of poultry or game, and two or three glasses of good claret, sherry, or Madeira - Champagne, port and beer are forbidden.
• For tea, two or three oz of fruit, a rusk or two, and a cup of tea without milk or sugar.
• For supper, three or four oz of meat or fish, similar to dinner, with a glass or two of claret.
• For a nightcap, if required, a tumbler of grog (gin, whisky, or brandy without sugar) or a glass or two of claret or sherry.
Fletcherizing (1903): This diet, which became all the rage, is based on Horace Fletcher, an art dealer who lost 40 pounds by chewing his food, but not swallowing. He chewed each bite exactly 32 times, once for each tooth in his mouth.
Counting calories (1918): Lulu Hunt Peters’ book Diet and Health and the Key to Calories was first published in 1918 and it contained information on how much of various foods you could eat for 100 calories. The book also included advice for dealing with jealous friends, cutting out sugar and avoiding saccharine, and warned about the dangers of diet pills.
Cigarette diet (1925): The cigarette diet recommended smoking to decrease appetite and many cigarette companies used this line of reasoning in their advertising.
Inuit meat and fat diet (1928): The Inuit meat and fat diet was a lot like the Atkins diet only it was even stricter. The Arctic explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson recommended eating no fruits or vegetables of any type.
Stoll diet aid (1930): This diet, consisting of milk chocolate, starch, and an extract of roasted wheat and bran, was born in 1930—the first liquid diet supplement.
Grapefruit diet (1930): The grapefruit diet was devised around the hypothesis that certain enzymes in grapefruit lead to weight loss—this has since been found, of course, to be untrue. Besides eating grapefruit before every meal, the plan calls for cutting out carbohydrates and sugar, avoiding certain foods such as celery and white onions, eating more high-protein and high-fat foods such as meat, and often limiting yourself to around 800 calories a day.
Hay diet (1930): Dr. William Hay developed an intricate document of which foods should and should not be combined with other foods. For example, protein could be combined with non-starchy vegetables, but he declared that they should not be eaten with other protein, fat, carbohydrate, or fruit.
References and Recommended Readings
Davis S. The grapefruit diet. WebMD website. http://www.webmd.com/diet/grapefruit-diet. Reviewed December 9, 2013. Accessed April 7, 2015.
Greene A. 15 most bizarre diets in history. Woman’s Day website. http://www.womansday.com/health-fitness/nutrition/a1523/15-most-bizarre-diets-in-history-106514/. Published May 3, 2010. Accessed April 7, 2015.
Lulu Hunt Peters and the birth of the modern diet book. CalorieLab website. http://calorielab.com/news/2005/09/16/lulu-hunt-peters-and-the-birth-of-the-modern-diet-book/. Published September 16, 2005. Accessed April 7, 2015.
Swain L. Hay diet. Diet.com website. http://www.diet.com/g/hay-diet. Accessed April 7, 2015.
The Graham diet. DietsinReview website. http://www.dietsinreview.com/diets/the-graham-diet/. Accessed April 7, 2015.
The real diet of William Banting that “cured” his obesity. The Carb-Sane Asylum website. http://carbsanity.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-real-diet-of-william-banting-that.html. Published October 29, 2013. Accessed April 7, 2015.
Review Date: 3/7/15
Contributed by Elaine M. Hinzey RDN, LD/N