Page 112 - Food Network (January 2020)

A new Smithsonian exhibit reminds us just

how far we’ll go to shed a pound. washington,
dc

at the Smithsonian reminds us that Americans haven’t always had the

food exhibit, explores our most controversial and curious fad diets since
1950. To prep you for a visit, we took a look back at 100 years of dieting.

1950s

1918 1930s Grapefruit Diet

Calorie The Hay Diet The
William Howard Hay, MD, believed
that the key to good digestion was

Calories were a foreign concept never eating starches and animal
until Lulu Hunt Peters, MD, wrote proteins at the same time. There’s
Diet and Health: With Key to the not much scientific proof of this, but
Calories. It became a best seller similar diets remain popular among
people with digestive issues.

One version of this diet required followers
to eat grapefruit or drink the juice (and little
else) for all meals. The idea was that an
enzyme in the fruit aided weight loss, but
that was never proven—and people later
1981 learned that the diet can cause liver damage.

The
1990s Beverly Hills 1970s

Olestra Mania Diet

The FDA released a food pyramid in The promise was amazing: Lose The Sleeping
1992 that discouraged eating fat, 25 pounds in 35 days! Weight-loss Beauty Diet
and in the years following, dieters guru Judy Mazel suggested that
became obsessed with low-fat eating lots of fruit and very little
snacks, like chips made with Olestra. salt would lead to speedy weight This bizarre diet, which first appeared
The fat substitute came with its loss. Doctors said that prolonged in the 1966 novel Valley of the Dolls,
own problem: It negated the body’s use of the diet could cause protein required you to sedate yourself for long
ability to absorb nutrients and deficiency and hair loss, but people periods of time to prevent eating. People
sometimes caused abdominal bought it anyway: The book sold soon woke up to the insanity of it.
cramping—and diarrhea! SCALE, DR. HAY, CHIPS, MASK, BABY FOOD AND BREAD: GETTY IMAGES. PETERS: ALAMY. GRAPEFRUIT: LEVI BROWN.
more than 1 million copies.

2000s 2010s THE BEVERLY HILLS DIET: SMITHSONIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN HISTORY.

The Baby Gluten Backlash See the Exhibit
For years, gluten-free diets
On a Diet is part of Food:
Food Diet were reserved for those with Transforming the American Table
Linked to celebrities like celiac disease, but a general fear at the Smithsonian National
Tracy Anderson and Jennifer Aniston, of carbs led to an explosion in Museum of American History
this diet suggested replacing gluten-free dieting—and a in Washington, DC. The museum is
one or two meals a day with baby market saturated with products: open daily and admission is free.
food. Followers ended up severely Some experts predict the industry americanhistory.si.edu
restricting their calories (and their fun). will grow to $7.6 billion this year.

98 FOOD NETWORK MAGAZINE ● JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020