Think that a low-carb diet is a new idea? William Banting was an undertaker well-known for his elaborate funerals for royalty and the upper crust of London. But he struggled most of his adult life with obesity. After trying all kinds of diets, exercise regimens, and odd advice, his ear doctor recommended a diet that limited bread and sweets in 1862. Banting finally lost the extra wright, 46 pounds of it, and in his joy wrote a pamphlet about the diet.
Suddenly you couldn’t turn your head without hearing about this undertaker who wanted to promote longevity. The humor magazine Punch regularly cartooned Banting’s dietary strictures as a gag; an oddball farce called Doing Banting hit the English stage; and a popular song warned men about dieting too enthusiastically, with the narrator’s sweetheart clucking, “I hate thin men, you’re lost to me / if you persist in Banting.” An American paper cheerily proclaimed in the summer of 1864 that two Boston men had tried Banting’s method and lost more than 40 pounds each over the course of a year.
Read the story of the ear doctor's diet and the effect it had on the undertaker, and all of Britain, for that matter. -via Strange Company
(Image credit: Ben Nadler)