1. In the 1970’s Roger Linn promoted his miracle liquid diet. The drink consisted of ground animal horns, hooves, hides, tendons, bones and other slaughterhouse by products. The ghastly liquid provided 400 calories and no nutrients and at least 58 dieters suffered heart attacks as a result.
2. Lord Byron was a follower of the vinegar diet. He would drink vinegar daily and eat vinegar soaked potatoes, the idea behind this was to cleanse and purge the body. This diet became very popular with Victorian ladies and Byron became one of the first diet icons.
3 In the early 1900’s a trend known as the ‘tapeworm diet’ became popular. It is exactly how it sounds. Dieters would swallow a pill of beef tapeworn cysts, which would then grow in their intestines and absorb food. This would then cause the desired weight loss, as well as the more undesirable effects of vomiting and diarrhoea.
4. Popularized in the 1960’s, the sleeping beauty diet built on the fact that you can’t eat while you sleep. Followers, such as Elvis Presley, would heavily sedate themselves and sleep for days.
5. The chew and spit diet became popular at the turn of the 20th Century. This diet promoted chewing food until all the goodness was extracted, then spitting out the remains. There were quite strict rules to follow concerning how many times a foodstuff must be chewed, for example one shallot had to be chewed 700 times.