One of the pioneering American nutritionists in the 1940s advocated eating fresh fruits and vegetables, and cutting out starch and sugar, to lose weight easily and naturally. Gayelord Hauser, considered by some the founder of the natural health movement, along with Adelle Davis, wrote many articles, books and developed healthy food products in the 1930s-’60s, (including Spike seasoning, still sold today). Hauser was controversial, back in the day ,(like Adelle Davis) but he left a strong legacy of advocating eating healthy to extend life and eliminate obesity. His beliefs pre-dated the current, growing interest in health food, organics and the vegan lifestyle.
Hauser lived in Beverly Hills and was often called “the nutritionist-to-the-stars” ( a close friend of Greta Garbo and many others). It follows that he would have developed a “Be More Beautiful Diet“. Although it’s been 63 years since he published this diet, the desire to be a “Beauty” still draws a crowd - in Hollywood and elsewhere. Below is what I call a one-day detox diet ; Hauser described it as “simple housecleaning” - either way, it’s a good way to moderately “fast” after over-eating on a summer cruise, at a barbecue, holiday feast, a night out on the town or a trip to one of those Mcfast-food chains. Here are two versions of this one-day diet: solid and liquid.
The One-Day Beauty Diet (Solid Version)
Breakfast: Sliced orange or 1/2 grapefruit. Black coffee or herbal tea (preferred by Hauser). Mid-morning snack: Any fruit, but bananas. Lunch: Chopped carrot and cottage cheese salad,sprinkled with lemon. 1 cup vegetable broth or herbal tea, sweetened with natural honey. Mid-afternoon snack: Any fruit but bananas. Dinner: Lightly cooked fresh spinach, seasoned with lemon juice. Fresh fruit salad. 1 dish yogurt (natural, unsweetened), small black coffee or herbal tea. Evening snack (if hungry); more fresh fruit or fresh fruit juice or gentle herbal teas, like camomile and peppermint (good for digestion).
The One-Day Beauty Diet (Liquid Version)
Breakfast: 1 large glass of fresh orange or grapefruit juice, 2 ups of hot peppermint or papaya tea, with natural honey, or, “if you must” 1 cup black coffee. Mid-morning snack: Choose 1 large glass of fresh celery, carrot or unsweetened apple juice, or all 3 combined. If fresh vegetables are on hand, drink fresh orange or grapefruit juice instead. Lunch: 2 cups fresh vegetable broth, 1 dish unsweetened yogurt, flavored with cinnamon, nutmeg or black-strap molasses. Mid-afternoon snack (same as Mid-morning snack). Dinner: Healthy veggie broth (as much as you like), another dish of unsweetened yogurt, flavored with cinnamon, nutmeg and/or black-strap molasses, herbal teas (caffeine-free and restful like camomile) or digestive-friendly, like peppermint, sweetened with natural honey.
Gayelord Hauser was a man ahead of his time - a nutritionist when nutritionists were viewed on the same plain as magicians, fortune-tellers and psychics (ahem). Hauser ended up on the “Quackwatch” list, because he was also a salesman, and he promoted his then controversial opinions in articles and books, “without a medical degree”. When he advocated the healthy eating of black-strap molasses, the FDA accused him of product endorsement and false claims and seized (confiscated) his best-selling book on healthy lifestyle eating (1951). Among his enemies, aside from those at the FDA, were the sugar and flour lobbyists, who might have had more than a hand in this form of censorship. But Hauser continued on, because he was simply passionate about healthy eating: “What a pity it is that nearly all restaurants and in the majority of homes, vegetables are still cooked to the point where they are completely colorless and devoid of all appeal to the appetite as well as their nutrients” he wrote in his cookbook. “When you peel, pickle, cook to death or throw away the best parts of food, you are nourishing the kitchen sink and starving your family.” Vegetable peelings, outside dark green leaves and vegetable tops, Hauser contended, were all treasure houses of minerals. “Don’t waste them,” he advised, clearly not sounding like a faddist promoter, unless you count vegetable peelings as a brand-name product falsely claiming a nutrition benefit.
Hauser’s healthy eating advice appears as solid today as it was in the 1940s, and thankfully, far less controversial (especially now that both product mentions and health food are widely accepted). Some of Hauser’s simple, but thoughtful tips include:
1. Always under-cook. “The best method of cooking any food is the method which cooks it in the least time.”
2. Always save the liquid in which vegetables have been cooked. (Hauser used these healthy juices in broths and other dishes).
3. Eliminate “foodless food” - for example, refined white flour, “dead” white sugar, mayonnaise, gravy, bottled salad dressings, (and I am certain, if he were alive today), soda (sugar-free or fully loaded).
4. Include “wonder foods”: including, according to Hauser, yogurt, brewer’s yeast, powdered skim milk, wheat germ and especially black strap molasses. Hauser believed in the healthful effects of “whole foods” and urged people to avoid starch, gluten, sugar, and excessive consumption of meat. When enriched white breads were introduced in the 1950’s, Hauser denounced them as “devitalized,” (which must have vitalized the bread lobby to join the other food lobbies fighting him).
There is much more to Hauser’s healthy eating advice - including the balancing of acid and alkaline foods (also advocated by the famed clairvoyant, Edgar Cayce in the Mid-Century), the addition of lean proteins for those who wanted them (also found in vintage diets, like the popular later Mid-Century Scarsdale Diet) the advocating of whole unprocessed foods, like Adelle Davis, and the addition of vitamins (Hauser particularly advocated Vitamins Bs and Cs). With one eye on nutrition, and the other on economy, Hauser’s writings, and his cookbook included thrifty ways to make natural yogurt, healthy soups, and vegetarian (meatless) dishes. ( If this appeals to you, his work and products can be found on the internet. As in all cases, where you decide to change how you eat, ask your doctor first, especially if you have health concerns affected by eating).
Clairvoyant Trend Analysis: Given the dreadful economy, the dreadful news about obesity in America (and especially in young children), the dreadful deaths and illnesses caused by unsanitary conditions in food processing and preparation (peanuts) - I see Gayelord Hauser as more Guru than Grand-stander. The green movement, the gardening movement, the free-ranging, wide-ranging healthy eating movement, the growing trend to offer Vegan meals at more restaurants - all signs eating healthy will grow even more popular in days to come. As a nation, in 2009, the Recession has literally forced us to go on a diet: we are cutting out many forms of excess, trimming and slimming - both in food and in how we view the world. Fast food may seem cheap; but it is anything but, given the eventual cost of adding excess calories and fat to your body. Ahead, I see fast food sales slowing down. In the near future, more people will take the money they might otherwise spend on Mcfood and visit the produce sections of their market, opting to brown-bag vegetables and/or fruit. This is a smart move: Choosing fruits and veggies over fried foods not only helps stretch dollars, but slims waistlines. Look for some of the revenues of these formerly popular fast food chains to tumble as more people lose their appetite for grease and lard. Look for rapid growth in new ways to farm and to garden and to offer healthy, farm-fresh foods to those who live far from farms (there are already a number of farmers delivering their produce to customers who’ve signed up for monthly packages). If I were a fast food chain, I’d worry. If I were a lobbyist for the fast food industry, I’d check the status of my retirement plan.
Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet. — Albert Einstein (1879-1955).
Special thanks to The Gaylord Hauser Cookbook (1946), the works of Edgar Cayce, Dr. Herman Tarnower’s Scarsdale Diet, the works of Adelle Davis, Quackwatch and more research from the internet on nutritionists, diets and the food industry.
5.13.09
