September 9, 2022 • 18 mins
As soon as people became wealthy enough not to have to spend every waking hour of their day, working, cleaning, hunting or cooking, they had enough to look in the mirror and decide what they didn’t like about themselves.
From the truly horrific and crippling footbinding practices in imperial china to modern day plastic surgery, people have been searching for ways to achieve their body goals. Victorian England, the initial setting for todays story, was possibly one of the craziest times in history when it came to the number of diet fads and body morphing practices. So what better place to dive in and see where the stories take us.
-------------------
Thank you to Athletic Greens for being a sponsor for this episode.
To make it easy, Athletic Greens will give you a FREE 1 year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit www.athleticgreens.com/EMERGING to take ownership of your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance!
-------------------
Thank you also to Startuprad.io - The Authority on German Startups for supporting this episode.
Startuprad.io is an English-only startup podcast with exclusive startup content, including regular news, and interviews. They are the international voice of the German-speaking startup scene. Find them on whichever platform you prefer to listen on.
-------------------
Please support me on Patreon for just $2 a month : https://www.patreon.com/foodhistorypod
-------------------
References:
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-horrifying-legacy-of-the-victorian-tapeworm-diet
https://www.vice.com/en/article/xw5nnq/inside-the-lasting-legacy-of-tapeworm-diets
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-20695743
https://www.historyextra.com/period/modern/weird-fad-diets-weight-loss-history-new-year/
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-fantastic-history-of-food--3591729/support.
From the truly horrific and crippling footbinding practices in imperial china to modern day plastic surgery, people have been searching for ways to achieve their body goals. Victorian England, the initial setting for todays story, was possibly one of the craziest times in history when it came to the number of diet fads and body morphing practices. So what better place to dive in and see where the stories take us.
-------------------
Thank you to Athletic Greens for being a sponsor for this episode.
To make it easy, Athletic Greens will give you a FREE 1 year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit www.athleticgreens.com/EMERGING to take ownership of your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance!
-------------------
Thank you also to Startuprad.io - The Authority on German Startups for supporting this episode.
Startuprad.io is an English-only startup podcast with exclusive startup content, including regular news, and interviews. They are the international voice of the German-speaking startup scene. Find them on whichever platform you prefer to listen on.
-------------------
Please support me on Patreon for just $2 a month : https://www.patreon.com/foodhistorypod
-------------------
References:
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-horrifying-legacy-of-the-victorian-tapeworm-diet
https://www.vice.com/en/article/xw5nnq/inside-the-lasting-legacy-of-tapeworm-diets
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-20695743
https://www.historyextra.com/period/modern/weird-fad-diets-weight-loss-history-new-year/
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-fantastic-history-of-food--3591729/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
As soon as people became wealthy enoughnot to have to spend every waking hour
of their day working, cleaning,hunting, or cooking, they had enough
time to look in the mirror anddecide what they didn't like about themselves.
And so for hundreds, if notthousands of years, people, and let's
be honest, mainly women, whohave forever been held to unthinkably high standards
(00:23):
of beauty, have done whatever theycould to their bodies to achieve their society's
idea of perfection. From the trulyhorrific and crippling foot binding practices in Imperial
China to modern day plastic surgery,people have been searching for ways to achieve
their body goals. Victorian England.The initial setting for today's story was possibly
(00:45):
one of the craziest times in historywhen it came to the number of diet
fads and body morphing practices. Sowhat better place to dive in and see
where the stories take us. Theseare the bizarre but true stories from history
(01:07):
that in some way involved food.I'm Nick Charlie Key, and this is
the fantastic history of food. Oneof today's sponsors is Athletic Greens. So
what is Athletic Greens. Well,with one delicious scoop of Athletic Greens,
(01:30):
you're absorbing seventy five high quality vitamins, minerals, whole food sourced superfoods,
probiotics and adaptogens to help you startyour day right. This special blend of
ingredients supports your gut health, yournervous system, your immune system, your
energy, your recovery, your focusand aging. And best of all,
(01:51):
it's lifestyle friendly. So whether youfollow akito, paleo, vegan, dairy
free, or gluten free diet,Athletic Greens fits into all of them.
It costs less than three dollars aday, and for every purchase, Athletic
Greens donates to organizations helping to getnutritious food to kids in need, including
No Kid Hungry in the US.In twenty twenty a loan, Athletic Greens
(02:15):
donated over one point two million mealsto kids. Right now, it's time
to reclaim your health and arm yourimmune system with a convelient daily nutrition.
It's just one scoop in a cupof water every day. That's it.
No need for a million different pearlsand supplements to look out for your health
to make it easy. Athletic Greensis going to give you a free one
(02:36):
year supply of immune supporting Vitamin Dand five free travel packs with your first
purchase. All you have to dois visit Athletic Greens dot com slash emerging
again that's Athletic Greens dot com slashem r gi NNG to take ownership over
your health and pick up the ultimatedaily nutritional insurance. You are a professional
(03:00):
looking at the European startup scene,Germany is a place you cannot miss.
Fortunately for you, there is startupraddot eo, the authority on German startups.
This English only podcast brings you freshinterviews each week. Most likely you
have never heard or read anything onlystartups before in English, but you will
(03:22):
in the future. Be ahead ofthe curve and subscribe to Startupra dot eo
podcast or check for the startup raddot eo Internet radio station. Check your
Alexa for the startup rad dot eoskill as well. The Victorian era in
(03:46):
England dominated most of the eighteen hundredsand is notorious amongst historians for their truly
bizarre standards of beauty. For somereason, the uppercrust Society woman decided that
true beauty meant looking like you weresuffering from a life threatening disease tuberculosis to
be exact, or consumption as theycalled it. Then what this meant in
(04:09):
practice is that women would shy awayfrom sunlight, as well as powdering their
faces in order to get that trulypale skin look with slightly dilated eyes,
rosy cheeks, crimson lips, anda frame so skinny as to struggle to
hold itself aloft. In order toachieve some of these looks, women would
(04:29):
do irreversible damage to themselves and theirhealth by drinking ammonia or bathing in arsenic
which at the time they already knewwas poisonous. Figure crushing corsets were pulled
so tightly that breathing became difficult,all in the name of achieving that so
called perfect sixteen inch waistline. Intoday's society, thankfully, these practices have
(04:53):
mostly fallen by the waysiders. Bothstandards of beauty have changed along with the
woman's fight against the pressures of modernin society to look, act, or
speak in a certain way. Butas always, one particular practice has somehow
weathered the storm and clung on throughthe sands of time. It has even
been mentioned by one of the Kardashiansas an option to speed up her weight
(05:15):
loss, as well as featuring onmore diet blogs than I care to mention.
And that is the literally stomach churningidea of the tapeworm diet. In
theory, it sounds relatively harmless andrather simple. In fact, all you
(05:40):
do is swallow a pull capsule witha freeze dried tapeworm egg inside. The
warmth of your insides allows the eggto thaw and attach itself to you before
hatching into a terrifying tapeworm. Oncethe parasite is alive and growing inside of
the host, it begins eating partof whatever it's human eats. The theory
goes that the so called dieter canthen eat whatever they want and still lose
(06:03):
weight as the tape woem chomps aportion of everything that comes past it.
Now, to Victorian ladies, thissounded like the Holy Grail, the best
of both worlds, to be exact. One of the most popular pieces of
women's literature in these times was abeauty guide penned by a woman named S.
D. Powers. It was ironicallycalled The Ugly girl papers and was
(06:27):
an illustrated guide to becoming more beautiful. In fact, the guide's overarching principle
stated that it is a woman's businessto be beautiful. Beauty, especially in
Victorian England, with its myriad offads, took a lot of time and
(06:50):
effort, and, according to theguide, could not and should not forego
the tediousness of beauty regimes should sheso desire to find a husban. It's
not hard to see now why womenwere prepared to do almost anything to achieve
the ideals of their times. Anyconcerns about health or any discomfort felt from
(07:11):
the tapeworm were simply chalked up tothe fact that beauty is pain and sacrifices
needed to be made. But oneof the ultimate sacrifices to be made was,
once the woman's desired weight had beenreached, how do we get the
tapeworm out again? And this iswhere things get interesting. Now that the
tapeworm was no longer necessary, theywould approach doctors to help them retrieve the
(07:35):
unwanted parasite. In Victorian England,you would often be faced with two options,
neither of which were one hundred percenteffective, but ones that were incredibly
different in their methodology. Firstly,and most simply, patients were often given
special medicinal pills to hopefully kill offthe tapeworm and allow it to be flushed
(07:57):
out of their system. Like Isaid, it wasn't always effective, and
in fact wasn't even close. Itwas very hit or miss, and more
often than not it missed. Thenthere was option too, which was a
whole lot more invasive and a wholelot more dangerous to the human host.
Victorian doctors employed the invention of adoctor Myers of Sheffield, who surmised that
(08:20):
because tapeworms loved food so much,the patient should therefore starve themselves for a
few days and in turn also starvethe tapeworm. Once the tapeworm was desperate
enough for some food, doctor Myers'sinvention would be used. The invention in
question was a cylinder filled with foodattached to a long string. The cylinder
(08:41):
would be inserted via the mouth,and, if all went well, swallowed
down into the digestive tract. Thesmell of the food would alert the tapeworm
and it would attempt to eat whateverit could inside the cylinder. The cylinder
would then be pulled back up thedigestive tract, luring the tapeworm up and
up until it was visible to thedoctor, whereby it could be grabbed and
(09:03):
slowly wound out of the patient.At this point, it's worth noting that
adult tapeworms can grow to be aslong as twenty five meters or eighty feet
long. The pulling out process wasnot a quick thing, and, as
I'm sure you can imagine, anincredibly uncomfortable procedure for the patient. There's
(09:30):
also one other thing that made thismethod particularly daunting for patients, and that
is due to the size of thecylinder the patients needed to swallow. Many
of them unfortunately ended up choking todeath on the cylinder before the tapeworm could
even be successfully removed. Now,some folk medicine cures hilariously state that one
should simply hold a glass of milkat both ends of your top and bottom
(09:52):
openings and wait for the tape wormto come out for a drink. In
nineteen twelve, reports of t tapewormconsumption began to appear in the United States.
In this case, it happened unwillinglyto a wealthy woman who had sent
away for a miracle diet pill,only to realize after consumption that they contain
tapeworm eggs. There are also storiesof horse racing jockeys famous for needing to
(10:16):
be as small and light as possible, ingesting tapeworms to maintain their optimal racetrack
weights. Tapeworms generally only cause minordiscomfort and sufferers, and nowadays can be
easily treated. However, in somecases, when they grow to excessive sizes
and aren't treated for a prolonged periodof time, they have been known to
(10:37):
cause meningitis, epilepsy, and evendementia. This is in stark contrast to
a nineteen twenties newspaper advert cheerfully sellingthe tapeworm diet as a solution, which
read tapeworms no danger, no diet, no exercise. Now, the tapeworm
diet wasn't alone in being a crazydiet fad from recent history, but it
(11:01):
certainly was the weirdest and by farthe grossest of them all. One of
the other popular diet crazes this timein the early twentieth century was known as
Fletcherism. A man named Horace Fletchersuffered for years from indigestion and obesity and
decided to come up with a uniquemethod to combat both of these afflictions.
Generally, the main concept behind thisfad actually makes a lot of sense.
(11:26):
Essentially, it was calling for mindfuleating, to slow down during a meal
and really consider each and every mouthful. There was one mechanical requirement for it
to work, though, and thatwas that Fletcherism required you to chew each
and every mouthful at least thirty twotimes before swallowing. People of the times
denounced him as a quack and accusedhim of promoting constipation rather than weight loss.
(11:50):
In reality, however, there issome scientific backing for his method of
eating. Even if it can beoverwhelmingly tedious, it helps prevent overeating in
a very simple biological way. Insideof our small intestine is a group of
(12:11):
cells that react to food by releasinga hormone called p YY. This hormone
acts as a hungus apressant and helpsto give you that feeling of being full
after a big meal. Fletcherism helpsthis process in two ways. The release
of the pyy hormone can often takea while to kick in, and that
full feeling can present too late ifyou're an overly fast eater. The mindful,
(12:35):
slow chewing method of Fletcherism helps yourbody to release that hormone in time
to stop you eating more than necessary. The second way that it helps is
that the hormone is released even quickerbecause the overabundance of chewing has helped to
break the food down more quickly,meaning it triggers the p YY receptor is
faster than less chewed food. Nowwe are all too aware of them to
(13:05):
day, but one of the veryfirst diet influences in history was the infamous
Romantic poet Lord Byron. He advocatedfor truly bizarre vinegar diet, whereby he
would drink undiluted vinegar multiple times aday, but not only that, he
would also soak his food in itbefore eating it. This, apparently and
(13:26):
unsurprisingly, was said to be thecause of, at the time his very
in vogue appearance. He was famouslyknown to have been incredibly pale and slim,
bordering on gangley As a physique,what most people took to be the
epitome of health and fashion, morethan likely was illness and malnutrition. The
(13:48):
annoying thing about all of this is, though, in recent studies, it
has been shown that small amounts ofdiluted vinegar, and specifically apple cider vinegar
does in fact have a rather largeimpact on the amount of sugar one consumes
from starchy foods like bread when takenbefore eating another. Bonker's diet idea first
appeared in Venice. In fifteen fiftyeight, a merchant there by the name
(14:11):
of Luigi Cornaro published a book titledThe Art of Living Long. He was
apparently a convert from a life ofutter excess into a man who severely restricted
his diet. After suffering from exhaustionand illness for a few years, he
decided he would institute an almost militantregime when it came to his food consumption.
(14:33):
He decided he would only consume threehundred and forty grams of food per
day, consisting of any combination ofbread, egg, yolks, meat,
or soup, in order to stillhave some enjoyment in his life. He
did allow himself half a bottle ofwine per day as well. After mastering
this restrictive diet, he apparently tookthings to even greater heights by allowing himself
(14:56):
one single egg per day and nothingmore. And who can argue with him
when he is said to have livedto the ripe old age of one hundred
and two. Finally, we cometo one of the weirdest of them all,
but one which boasts a rather famousadherent, the King himself, Elvis
(15:18):
Presley Others. Diet first surface inthe nineteen sixties and seems designed purely for
people with no self control whatsoever.It seems to rely solely on the concept
that if you're sleeping, you aren'tbusy eating, so naturally, it was
given the name the Sleeping Beauty diet. People looking to lose weight quickly would
(15:39):
block out a few weeks of theirlife and then basically just sleep. Now,
obviously, the human body can't dothat naturally, and so they would
employ the use of copious amounts ofsedatives, sleeping pools, alcohol, and
other drugs to force the body tostay as sleepy as possible, sometimes for
up to twenty hours a day.Elvis found out about this actors, and,
(16:00):
desperate to shed a few pounds,had a doctor put him in a
medically induced coma for a few daysto stop him being tempted to eat.
The King did have a rather unhealthyrelationship with food, The diet often ranging
from deep fried pickles to peanut butter, bacon and banana sandwiches. After gorging
on meals like that for a while, it's no wonder he felt the need
(16:22):
to sleep it off. Well.There have been so many fad diets throughout
the ages, many of which haveproven to be physically harmful and damaging,
that any perceived gain from the regimeis often more than artweighed by the negative
effects on the body. I am, by no means a doctor or a
dietitian, but in my experience,our bodies all need different combinations and variations
(16:47):
of certain eating habits to perform attheir optimum. Moderation is always key,
but so is finding out what worksfor you in a sustainable manner. But
that's enough for me. I hopethat whenever you eat your next meal,
you savor it and enjoy it,as that truly is the essence of the
joy that is food. This showis made entirely by me Nick Charlie Key,
(17:14):
with our theme music having been madeby the enigma that is the mysterious
Breakmaster Cylinder. If you'd like tosupport the show, the simplest way to
do that is over on our Patreonaccount. There's just one option, So
for just two bucks a month,you'll help me keep producing the show,
and in return, you'll get yourname forever etched onto our supporters Wall of
(17:37):
Fame over on our website and thenmaybe listen out for your name in an
upcoming episode. So until next time, bono petit damn
As soon as people became wealthy enoughnot to have to spend every waking hour
of their day working, cleaning,hunting, or cooking, they had enough
time to look in the mirror anddecide what they didn't like about themselves.
And so for hundreds, if notthousands of years, people, and let's
be honest, mainly women, whohave forever been held to unthinkably high standards
(00:23):
of beauty, have done whatever theycould to their bodies to achieve their society's
idea of perfection. From the trulyhorrific and crippling foot binding practices in Imperial
China to modern day plastic surgery,people have been searching for ways to achieve
their body goals. Victorian England.The initial setting for today's story was possibly
(00:45):
one of the craziest times in historywhen it came to the number of diet
fads and body morphing practices. Sowhat better place to dive in and see
where the stories take us. Theseare the bizarre but true stories from history
(01:07):
that in some way involved food.I'm Nick Charlie Key, and this is
the fantastic history of food. Oneof today's sponsors is Athletic Greens. So
what is Athletic Greens. Well,with one delicious scoop of Athletic Greens,
(01:30):
you're absorbing seventy five high quality vitamins, minerals, whole food sourced superfoods,
probiotics and adaptogens to help you startyour day right. This special blend of
ingredients supports your gut health, yournervous system, your immune system, your
energy, your recovery, your focusand aging. And best of all,
(01:51):
it's lifestyle friendly. So whether youfollow akito, paleo, vegan, dairy
free, or gluten free diet,Athletic Greens fits into all of them.
It costs less than three dollars aday, and for every purchase, Athletic
Greens donates to organizations helping to getnutritious food to kids in need, including
No Kid Hungry in the US.In twenty twenty a loan, Athletic Greens
(02:15):
donated over one point two million mealsto kids. Right now, it's time
to reclaim your health and arm yourimmune system with a convelient daily nutrition.
It's just one scoop in a cupof water every day. That's it.
No need for a million different pearlsand supplements to look out for your health
to make it easy. Athletic Greensis going to give you a free one
(02:36):
year supply of immune supporting Vitamin Dand five free travel packs with your first
purchase. All you have to dois visit Athletic Greens dot com slash emerging
again that's Athletic Greens dot com slashem r gi NNG to take ownership over
your health and pick up the ultimatedaily nutritional insurance. You are a professional
(03:00):
looking at the European startup scene,Germany is a place you cannot miss.
Fortunately for you, there is startupraddot eo, the authority on German startups.
This English only podcast brings you freshinterviews each week. Most likely you
have never heard or read anything onlystartups before in English, but you will
(03:22):
in the future. Be ahead ofthe curve and subscribe to Startupra dot eo
podcast or check for the startup raddot eo Internet radio station. Check your
Alexa for the startup rad dot eoskill as well. The Victorian era in
(03:46):
England dominated most of the eighteen hundredsand is notorious amongst historians for their truly
bizarre standards of beauty. For somereason, the uppercrust Society woman decided that
true beauty meant looking like you weresuffering from a life threatening disease tuberculosis to
be exact, or consumption as theycalled it. Then what this meant in
(04:09):
practice is that women would shy awayfrom sunlight, as well as powdering their
faces in order to get that trulypale skin look with slightly dilated eyes,
rosy cheeks, crimson lips, anda frame so skinny as to struggle to
hold itself aloft. In order toachieve some of these looks, women would
(04:29):
do irreversible damage to themselves and theirhealth by drinking ammonia or bathing in arsenic
which at the time they already knewwas poisonous. Figure crushing corsets were pulled
so tightly that breathing became difficult,all in the name of achieving that so
called perfect sixteen inch waistline. Intoday's society, thankfully, these practices have
(04:53):
mostly fallen by the waysiders. Bothstandards of beauty have changed along with the
woman's fight against the pressures of modernin society to look, act, or
speak in a certain way. Butas always, one particular practice has somehow
weathered the storm and clung on throughthe sands of time. It has even
been mentioned by one of the Kardashiansas an option to speed up her weight
(05:15):
loss, as well as featuring onmore diet blogs than I care to mention.
And that is the literally stomach churningidea of the tapeworm diet. In
theory, it sounds relatively harmless andrather simple. In fact, all you
(05:40):
do is swallow a pull capsule witha freeze dried tapeworm egg inside. The
warmth of your insides allows the eggto thaw and attach itself to you before
hatching into a terrifying tapeworm. Oncethe parasite is alive and growing inside of
the host, it begins eating partof whatever it's human eats. The theory
goes that the so called dieter canthen eat whatever they want and still lose
(06:03):
weight as the tape woem chomps aportion of everything that comes past it.
Now, to Victorian ladies, thissounded like the Holy Grail, the best
of both worlds, to be exact. One of the most popular pieces of
women's literature in these times was abeauty guide penned by a woman named S.
D. Powers. It was ironicallycalled The Ugly girl papers and was
(06:27):
an illustrated guide to becoming more beautiful. In fact, the guide's overarching principle
stated that it is a woman's businessto be beautiful. Beauty, especially in
Victorian England, with its myriad offads, took a lot of time and
(06:50):
effort, and, according to theguide, could not and should not forego
the tediousness of beauty regimes should sheso desire to find a husban. It's
not hard to see now why womenwere prepared to do almost anything to achieve
the ideals of their times. Anyconcerns about health or any discomfort felt from
(07:11):
the tapeworm were simply chalked up tothe fact that beauty is pain and sacrifices
needed to be made. But oneof the ultimate sacrifices to be made was,
once the woman's desired weight had beenreached, how do we get the
tapeworm out again? And this iswhere things get interesting. Now that the
tapeworm was no longer necessary, theywould approach doctors to help them retrieve the
(07:35):
unwanted parasite. In Victorian England,you would often be faced with two options,
neither of which were one hundred percenteffective, but ones that were incredibly
different in their methodology. Firstly,and most simply, patients were often given
special medicinal pills to hopefully kill offthe tapeworm and allow it to be flushed
(07:57):
out of their system. Like Isaid, it wasn't always effective, and
in fact wasn't even close. Itwas very hit or miss, and more
often than not it missed. Thenthere was option too, which was a
whole lot more invasive and a wholelot more dangerous to the human host.
Victorian doctors employed the invention of adoctor Myers of Sheffield, who surmised that
(08:20):
because tapeworms loved food so much,the patient should therefore starve themselves for a
few days and in turn also starvethe tapeworm. Once the tapeworm was desperate
enough for some food, doctor Myers'sinvention would be used. The invention in
question was a cylinder filled with foodattached to a long string. The cylinder
(08:41):
would be inserted via the mouth,and, if all went well, swallowed
down into the digestive tract. Thesmell of the food would alert the tapeworm
and it would attempt to eat whateverit could inside the cylinder. The cylinder
would then be pulled back up thedigestive tract, luring the tapeworm up and
up until it was visible to thedoctor, whereby it could be grabbed and
(09:03):
slowly wound out of the patient.At this point, it's worth noting that
adult tapeworms can grow to be aslong as twenty five meters or eighty feet
long. The pulling out process wasnot a quick thing, and, as
I'm sure you can imagine, anincredibly uncomfortable procedure for the patient. There's
(09:30):
also one other thing that made thismethod particularly daunting for patients, and that
is due to the size of thecylinder the patients needed to swallow. Many
of them unfortunately ended up choking todeath on the cylinder before the tapeworm could
even be successfully removed. Now,some folk medicine cures hilariously state that one
should simply hold a glass of milkat both ends of your top and bottom
(09:52):
openings and wait for the tape wormto come out for a drink. In
nineteen twelve, reports of t tapewormconsumption began to appear in the United States.
In this case, it happened unwillinglyto a wealthy woman who had sent
away for a miracle diet pill,only to realize after consumption that they contain
tapeworm eggs. There are also storiesof horse racing jockeys famous for needing to
(10:16):
be as small and light as possible, ingesting tapeworms to maintain their optimal racetrack
weights. Tapeworms generally only cause minordiscomfort and sufferers, and nowadays can be
easily treated. However, in somecases, when they grow to excessive sizes
and aren't treated for a prolonged periodof time, they have been known to
(10:37):
cause meningitis, epilepsy, and evendementia. This is in stark contrast to
a nineteen twenties newspaper advert cheerfully sellingthe tapeworm diet as a solution, which
read tapeworms no danger, no diet, no exercise. Now, the tapeworm
diet wasn't alone in being a crazydiet fad from recent history, but it
(11:01):
certainly was the weirdest and by farthe grossest of them all. One of
the other popular diet crazes this timein the early twentieth century was known as
Fletcherism. A man named Horace Fletchersuffered for years from indigestion and obesity and
decided to come up with a uniquemethod to combat both of these afflictions.
Generally, the main concept behind thisfad actually makes a lot of sense.
(11:26):
Essentially, it was calling for mindfuleating, to slow down during a meal
and really consider each and every mouthful. There was one mechanical requirement for it
to work, though, and thatwas that Fletcherism required you to chew each
and every mouthful at least thirty twotimes before swallowing. People of the times
denounced him as a quack and accusedhim of promoting constipation rather than weight loss.
(11:50):
In reality, however, there issome scientific backing for his method of
eating. Even if it can beoverwhelmingly tedious, it helps prevent overeating in
a very simple biological way. Insideof our small intestine is a group of
(12:11):
cells that react to food by releasinga hormone called p YY. This hormone
acts as a hungus apressant and helpsto give you that feeling of being full
after a big meal. Fletcherism helpsthis process in two ways. The release
of the pyy hormone can often takea while to kick in, and that
full feeling can present too late ifyou're an overly fast eater. The mindful,
(12:35):
slow chewing method of Fletcherism helps yourbody to release that hormone in time
to stop you eating more than necessary. The second way that it helps is
that the hormone is released even quickerbecause the overabundance of chewing has helped to
break the food down more quickly,meaning it triggers the p YY receptor is
faster than less chewed food. Nowwe are all too aware of them to
(13:05):
day, but one of the veryfirst diet influences in history was the infamous
Romantic poet Lord Byron. He advocatedfor truly bizarre vinegar diet, whereby he
would drink undiluted vinegar multiple times aday, but not only that, he
would also soak his food in itbefore eating it. This, apparently and
(13:26):
unsurprisingly, was said to be thecause of, at the time his very
in vogue appearance. He was famouslyknown to have been incredibly pale and slim,
bordering on gangley As a physique,what most people took to be the
epitome of health and fashion, morethan likely was illness and malnutrition. The
(13:48):
annoying thing about all of this is, though, in recent studies, it
has been shown that small amounts ofdiluted vinegar, and specifically apple cider vinegar
does in fact have a rather largeimpact on the amount of sugar one consumes
from starchy foods like bread when takenbefore eating another. Bonker's diet idea first
appeared in Venice. In fifteen fiftyeight, a merchant there by the name
(14:11):
of Luigi Cornaro published a book titledThe Art of Living Long. He was
apparently a convert from a life ofutter excess into a man who severely restricted
his diet. After suffering from exhaustionand illness for a few years, he
decided he would institute an almost militantregime when it came to his food consumption.
(14:33):
He decided he would only consume threehundred and forty grams of food per
day, consisting of any combination ofbread, egg, yolks, meat,
or soup, in order to stillhave some enjoyment in his life. He
did allow himself half a bottle ofwine per day as well. After mastering
this restrictive diet, he apparently tookthings to even greater heights by allowing himself
(14:56):
one single egg per day and nothingmore. And who can argue with him
when he is said to have livedto the ripe old age of one hundred
and two. Finally, we cometo one of the weirdest of them all,
but one which boasts a rather famousadherent, the King himself, Elvis
(15:18):
Presley Others. Diet first surface inthe nineteen sixties and seems designed purely for
people with no self control whatsoever.It seems to rely solely on the concept
that if you're sleeping, you aren'tbusy eating, so naturally, it was
given the name the Sleeping Beauty diet. People looking to lose weight quickly would
(15:39):
block out a few weeks of theirlife and then basically just sleep. Now,
obviously, the human body can't dothat naturally, and so they would
employ the use of copious amounts ofsedatives, sleeping pools, alcohol, and
other drugs to force the body tostay as sleepy as possible, sometimes for
up to twenty hours a day.Elvis found out about this actors, and,
(16:00):
desperate to shed a few pounds,had a doctor put him in a
medically induced coma for a few daysto stop him being tempted to eat.
The King did have a rather unhealthyrelationship with food, The diet often ranging
from deep fried pickles to peanut butter, bacon and banana sandwiches. After gorging
on meals like that for a while, it's no wonder he felt the need
(16:22):
to sleep it off. Well.There have been so many fad diets throughout
the ages, many of which haveproven to be physically harmful and damaging,
that any perceived gain from the regimeis often more than artweighed by the negative
effects on the body. I am, by no means a doctor or a
dietitian, but in my experience,our bodies all need different combinations and variations
(16:47):
of certain eating habits to perform attheir optimum. Moderation is always key,
but so is finding out what worksfor you in a sustainable manner. But
that's enough for me. I hopethat whenever you eat your next meal,
you savor it and enjoy it,as that truly is the essence of the
joy that is food. This showis made entirely by me Nick Charlie Key,
(17:14):
with our theme music having been madeby the enigma that is the mysterious
Breakmaster Cylinder. If you'd like tosupport the show, the simplest way to
do that is over on our Patreonaccount. There's just one option, So
for just two bucks a month,you'll help me keep producing the show,
and in return, you'll get yourname forever etched onto our supporters Wall of
(17:37):
Fame over on our website and thenmaybe listen out for your name in an
upcoming episode. So until next time, bono petit damn
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