Diets, fads and the methods of science | Vanessa Heggie

If you're starting a new diet this January then you're not alone. If the one you've chosen is a bit controversial, but claims to be scientific, then you're also part of a long historical trend. Fad diets boomed in popularity around 1900. Many middle-class British and American consumers tried out Horace Fletcher's relentless chewing, or Dr Haig's uric-acid avoidance, or Dr Dewy's self-explanatory 'no breakfast diet'. Many other scientists and doctors said these schemes were nonsense, so how should dieters decide whose advice to follow?All three of these diets claimed to be thoroughly scientific, based on the latest findings of physiology, nutrition, chemistry and medicine. Horace Fletcher's system of extensive chewing which reduces food to liquid before swallowing was even endorsed by the medical journal the Lancet, and he persuaded famous physiologists to run experiments on his theories Mr. Fletcher's results have interested physiologists and many of his experiments were carried on at Cambridge in association with Sir Michael Foster and other physiologists at that place.Despite this scientific endorsement, it was criticised then (and now) for being 'faddy', time consuming, and slightly disgusting - given Fletcher's obsession with his own faeces, which he claimed were free of offensive odours due to the rigorous chewing.Dr Alexander Haig was a respectable member of the Royal College of Physicians who researched the role of a particular chemical, uric acid, in gout and other di...
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