Vinegar and weight loss in women of eighteenth-century France: a lesson from the past.

This short note reports the eighteenth-century account of Mademoiselle Lapaneterie, a French woman who started drinking vinegar to lose weight and died one month later. The case, which was first published by Pierre Desault in 1733, has not yet been reported by present-day behavioural scholars. Similar reports about cases in 1776 are also presented, confirming that some women were using vinegar for weight loss. Those cases can be conceived as a lesson from the past for contemporary policies against the deceptive marketing of potentially hazardous weight-loss products.

Review of Dietary Practices of the 21st Century: Facts and Fallacies.

The prevalence of chronic metabolic diseases, such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and cancer, is increasing around the world. Nutritional interventions can reduce the prevalence and provide effective treatment, even when weight loss is not dramatic. The 2013 Canadian Diabetes Association Clinical Practice Guidelines concluded that certain dietary patterns and popular weight-loss diets had sufficient evidence to suggest their use by individuals with diabetes, but many other diet patterns and diets exist. Our specific objectives were to review the nutritional quality of various dietary patterns and diets, with emphasis on the evidence that they are efficacious for weight loss, glycemic control and cardiovascular risk factors.

High-end dining in the nineteenth-century United States.

A look at what fine restaurants served in mid-nineteenth century America, using the New York Public Library's collection of menus from the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York City for the years 1859 to 1865. With particular paid attention to the entrée category, 1,250 menus were analyzed. There are 900 different dishes mentioned, and the article discusses what were the most popular and the setting and customs governing such meals.

[The science of nutrition--between experiment and popular medicine in Sweden during the second half of the 19th century]. / Näringslära--mellan experimentell vetenskap och populärmedicin under 1800-talets andra hälft.

In 1886 a physiological laboratory was opened at the Karolinska institute in Stockholm and the same year Robert Tigerstedt was appointed as professor and head of the department. Tigerstedt started the following years physiological experiments about nutrion and he also gave a series of lectures concerning the physiological principles of nutrion. This can be seen as a stating point for the more particular investigations which was undertaken during the following decade by Tigerstedt himself and some of his students. Together with the medical chemists the physiologist participateted in the public debate about nutrion, the value of Justus von Liebig's meat extract, the price of different food stufs and other questions. The relations between the science of nutrition, agricultural interests and some popular health movements was complicated and the public debate anticipated the conflicts of interest which was to become more evident during the first half of the 20th century.

Search for the competitive edge: a history of dietary fads and supplements.

The premise and promise of ergogenic aid use is rooted in antiquity and is based upon superstition and ritualistic behavior of athletes who perceive that past performances were predicated upon unique dietary constituents or dietary manipulation. Accounts from ancient times recommended that athletes and soldiers preparing for battle consume specific animal parts to confer agility, speed or strength associated with that animal. Scientific understanding of the chemical and physiological nature of muscular work in the early 20th century was followed by ergogenic aid use by athletes and rationalized as "scientific" justification. Ergogenic aids such as alkaline salts, caffeine, carbohydrate and protein have been used by athletes with variable success. As nutritionists and exercise physiologists discovered and perfected the scientific understanding of metabolic reactions, athletes in turn experimented with the amount, form and timing of administration in the search for optimal performance. Anabolic steroids and blood doping enhance athletic performance, but health risks, ethics and sportsmanship contravene their use. Popularity and use of ergogenic aids often have preceded scientific substantiation of claims. Current products such as protein isolates and antioxidant nutrients commonly are used by athletes, and many ergogenic aids available today differ little from those used long ago.

Horace Fletcher (1849-1919): "The Great Masticator.".

Horace Fletcher (1849-1919), nicknamed "The Great Masticator," was a well known and influential food and health faddist in early 20th century North America. As a man of virtually limitless energy, Fletcher became a world traveler, millionaire businessman, amateur painter, speaker, and author, and self-taught nutritionist who perfected and fanatically distributed his doctrine of "Fletcherism," for 24 years (from 1895 to 1919). This dogma taught that all food must be deliberately masticated and not swallowed until it turned to liquid. Fletcher believed that prolonged chewing precluded overeating, led to better systemic and dental health, helped to reduce food intake, and consequently, conserved money. People were cautioned not to eat except when they were "good and hungry," and to avoid dining when they were angry or worried. They were also told that they could eat any food that they wanted, as long as they chewed it until the "food swallowed itself." This article explores the development of Fletchrism during the early 1900s.

Cien siglos de pan / One hundred centuries of bread

Los tesoros nutricionales del Perú milenario tienen sustento en su abigarrado mosaico ecológico y geográfico de climas, relieves, altitudes y latitudes. El conocimiento del medio ambiente y las habilidades desarrolladas por el antiguo poblador andino lograron convertir la variada riqueza natural en recursos sostenidos, destacando entre ellos los productos alimenticios que proporcionaron energía vital y salud. Extendiéronse después las plantas y animales andinos pro todos los rincones del planeta. Estas páginas relatan las incidencias históricas de su rechazo y asimilación, así como los diversos incidentes en la transculturización alimenticia desde y hacia el territorio del Perú

[Dietetics and the health and fitness cult. The risks of dietetics in the Welfare State]. / La dietética y el culto al cuerpo. Los riesgos de la dietética en el Estado de Bienestar.

We shall analyse the reasons why various matters related to diet have become a type of a purification ritual in the welfare society. In order to explain this circumstance three historic moments in the use of diet shall be studied: a) Diet as an explicit means in the care of the soul. Besides its function in the care of the body, diet was used in ancient times as a specific remedy to improve both the psychic and moral aspects of the mental faculties. b) Diet as an implicit remedy in moral well-being. From the Renaissance onwards diet no longer had this explicit function in curing the soul, however it tacitly retained a certain effect on the moral factors. c) Diet as an instrument of the health and fitness cult. Despite the scientific configuration of dietetics in the second half of the nineteenth century, old function of diet remained mutatis mutandis with regards to the moral sphere of the subject. Factors such as the development of how thinness or fatness was viewed at this time and the resulting explosion of interest in controlling body-weight, which acquired characteristics of pseudo-religious activity, may explain this fact. In this way the old idea of "you are what you eat" coexists with the more modern one of "you eat what you are".

Historical perspectives: food, feeding, and fancies.

An historical overview of feeding habits is presented. Effects of food and feeding on human activity through the ages, changes in dietary habits and its effect on health, and beliefs and decisions about eating are reviewed. Lessons to be learned are offered from this historical perspective.