SLIMMING WITHOUT TEARS

Southland Times, Issue 23840, 10 June 1939, Page 17

SLIMMING WITHOUT TEARS

Advice Culled From Last Century

The girl of today sipping her measure of grapefruit juice, studying hei’ chart of carbohydrates and proteins, and weighing herself each week, trembling in fear of another eight ounces, will read with wonder of a slimming diet published in England just 40 years ago. In a book of 1889 appears the following: “In cases of obesity this diet will be found excellent: Breakfast: 4 to 5 ounces of beef, mutton, kidneys, broiled fish, bacon, or any kind of cold meat except pork; a big cup (or two) of tea without milk or sugar, a little biscuit or dry toast. Dinner: 5 or 6 ounces of any fish except salmon, any meat except pork; any vegetable except potatoes; 1 ounce of dry toast; fruit out of pudding; any kind of poultry or game, and two or three glasses of sherry or claret. Port, champagne and beer forbidden. Tea: 2 or 3 ounces of fruit; a rusk or two, and. a cup or two of tea without milk or sugar. Supper: 3 or 4 ounces of meat or fish as at dinner, with a glass or two of claret. Nightcap (if required): A glass of grog—whisky, gin or brandy, without sugar—or a glass or two of sherry. The advice ends: “Dietary purifies the blood, strengthens, the muscles and viscera, and .sweetens life if it does not prolong it.” . Such a dietary as the one advised deserves the label, “Slimming Without Tears.” A pound of meat, and six to seven glasses of wine! It suggests a medieval prescription when gluttony was the fashion, and when no Lavoisier had yet arisen to throw scientific light on food values. This was the great Lavoisier who was one of the victims of the French Revolution. He was so concerned with his experiments that he asked to be spared from the guillotine for two weeks in order that he might continue them. The request was refused. Thus snake “Liberty” to a world benefactor.