Horrible Historic Diets

It struck me that a lot of people are talking about food during the current Corona Virus crisis. Some people are cooking more than they ever did before, consequently, people are also pondering the flip side of  staying in, and eating too much – dieting.

It’s not a new concept, and almost every decade has a new craze. Some were healthier than others, but some were just plain crazy; especially when we look further back in history. 

For a long time in human history the main problem was getting enough food, not in working off the excesses, but even in ancient times there were a fortunate few who managed to pile on the pounds. Celsus gave us us his slimming tips in the first century AD. “The body is thinned by a vomit, by purgation(enema or laxative), by eating only one meal a day, by heat, by a scorching sun, by all kinds of worry (that one has worked for me), by late nights (never worked for me!), by a hard bed throughout the summer, by sleep unduly short or overlong (again – never worked for me), by running, brisk walking, vigorous exercise, by bathing on an empty stomach, by bathing in hot water and especially if salt has been added, by eating sour and harsh things…” Pliny the Elder’s advice was “To put on weight (corpus augere) drink wine during meals. For those who are slimming (minuentibus), avoid drinking wine during meals.” He also remarks that “A civilised life is impossible without salt.”

So there you have it – walks, hard beds, sour food, hot baths, and no wine. Sounds pretty unappealing, doesn’t it?

The first diet book was written by Luigi Cornaro in 1558. In “La Vita Sobra” (The Sober Life) advocating extreme dietary deprivation. Centuries before calories had been recognised, or even understood, he turned around his own poor health at the age of 35. He cut his intake to just 12 ounces (342g) a day and drinking 14 ounces (400ml) of wine daily. He advocated that restriction was a recipe for long life, and he reportedly lived to over a hundred. We do have evidence that mice live longer when fed starvation rations, but there’s no evidence that it has the same effect on humans.

Thomas Short’s 1727 treatise on The Causes and Effects of Corpulence gave us history’s simplest message when he surmised that the best way to lose weight was to move away from swamps. Once you move far enough away from those swamps, you might find yourself confronted with the 18th century’s most popular weight loss method – hot sand. Of course any weight loss would only be temporary as it would just be water, but it might make those breeches cling just right for the big ball.

Lord Byron was probably the world’s first famous dieter, and he swore by the consumption of biscuits, soda water, and potatoes drenched in vinegar. He actually consumed so much of the stuff that he damaged the lining of his stomach. It has been posited that he was an early anorexic, as he was so obsessed by his weight. This may be partly due to his poor relationship with his mother, who was notoriously rotund. He coupled eating so little with massive amounts of exercise. Byron swam from Europe to Asia across the Hellespont Strait, exercised wearing six coats, boxed, and rode. 

The 1830s gave us the Chastity Diet. Reverend Sylvester Graham, after whom wholewheat Graham flour is named, as well as the Graham cracker, advocated temperance and vegetarianism. He also believed that spice, sugar, and refined flour, promoted sinful sexual urges and were best avoided. His simple diet was often lampooned by those opposed to temperance, but was part of a larger movement in the USA which combined lifestyle with religious doctrines focused on controlling appetites and desires of every kind. Dr. John Harvey Kellogg also believed that making the diet as bland as possible reduced sexual urges. He invented cornflakes to replace the indulgent meat-based breakfast which was popular at the time. For him, carnality came with consumption of flesh.

Commercial advances in the production of rubber gave us rubber underwear designed to sweat the fat away. No doubt it gave rise in a demand for pimple treatments too. It was way safer than the mid nineteenth century craze for using arsenic and strychnine to suppress the appetite and speed up the metabolism, but I suppose screaming diarrhoea and vomiting would help flatten the stomach. It was especially dangerous for those who took a higher dose to try to lose weight faster. There was a slew of quack treatments available due to lack of regulation. Many were useless, and some were extremely dangerous. Just as dangerous as the easy-to-swallow tapeworm cysts sold in pill form. Complications from those included many illnesses such as headaches from brain cysts, eye problems, meningitis, epilepsy, and dementia. The tape worm can also grow to 30 feet in length and can be very difficult to get rid of. 

1903 saw the advent of the chewing and spitting diet. Horace Fletcher toured and lectured on the benefits of chewing your food 100 times until all the goodness had dissipated. You then spat out what was left. It was disgusting on more than one level. It left people with a bowel movement only about once a fortnight The output was said to resemble little biscuits, and were practically odourless. How do we know that? Fletcher displayed a sample of his own on his tour. 

The advent of the twentieth century saw a new silhouette, and as we got into the twenties not only did movie stars influence the desire to be slim, so did the thin, flat-chested look of the flapper. Use of cigarettes by women became more acceptable, and were actually marketed at women as a way of staying slim as it suppressed the appetite. Many women still use them for that same reason to this day. One of the more wholesome diets was the milk diet, but it did not deliver a rounded or balanced regime as it lacked fibre, as well as vitamin C and other essential minerals. Another version, popular in Europe combined bananas with milk to round the diet out. WW2 put paid to that as bananas became so scarce in Europe that by the end of the war some children didn’t even know what the were. In 1923 Vilhjalmur Stefansson, proposed a high calorie diet of whale blubber, caribou and raw fish as Inuit were pictures of health. This diet lacked fruit and vegetables. It also ignored the fact the Inuit are genetically adapted to their diet, and enjoyed a very active life. 

The 1940s saw the ten day cleanse diet become fashionable, as many movie stars, both male and female, would remove excess fluid before a big scene to ensure they looked their best. It varies, but essentially consists of beverages with essential sugars and salts, and a laxative tea. It’s impossible to keep up long term, but it’s still in use today by models and show business professionals preparing for a show, or by people aiming to look their best for a big day. However, the wartime rationing in the UK had a definite effect. For the first time almost everyone, from royalty to pauper, ate the same balanced diet. Designed by the eccentric, polymath-genius, Dr. Magnus Pyke, it ensured fair share for the first time. While many people complained of having less, poor people had never eaten so well. Public health improved with vitamins and minerals distributed to children at schools, and illnesses like scurvy were eliminated in places they’d been endemic for centuries.    

The 1950s saw the cabbage soup diet waft its flatulent way into our lives. It reduces weight quickly as it’s filling, but low in calories. It’s also not a balanced diet, so cannot be consumed long term. By the 1960s the diet industry was in full swing, and there are too many to mention, but it has increasingly tended towards moderation and exercise, which is advice I need to take myself. I still have some chocolate. Maybe I’ll do that tomorrow. . .