Sweet bliss, edible endorphin, a piece of paradise—whatever epithets are used by true connoisseurs of chocolate. This product appeals not only to gourmets: both children and adults are delighted with it. A delicacy familiar from childhood, which is familiar to everyone and, it would seem, fully studied, contains enough secrets and mysteries that can surprise. There are many interesting facts about chocolate delicacy, thanks to which you can take a fresh look at this dessert.

An interesting fact that is little known: lovers of this sweet have their own day when they can indulge in gastronomic pleasures. World Chocolate Day has been celebrated on July 11 since 1995. In many cities, thematic festivals and exhibitions are held on this day.

Harmful or beneficial

There are few misconceptions about any product as there are about chocolate. Tooth decay, allergies, addiction, extra pounds - everything is not attributed to him. Fortunately, scientists have conducted a sufficient amount of research that can dispel all doubts.

Of all the desserts, chocolate is the least dangerous for dental health. This is due to the fact that cocoa butter has antibacterial properties. It envelops tooth enamel with a thin film, which prevents the harmful effects of bacteria that cause caries.

Japanese dentists have suggested adding cocoa bean shell extract to toothpastes and mouth rinses because they consider this extract to be a very effective component.

Regarding concerns about your figure, all the facts suggest that chocolate can become more of an ally in losing weight than an enemy. The calorie content of the dessert is due to the presence of glucose and milk in it, but these carbohydrates are consumed very quickly and do not have time to be deposited on the body in the form of fats. There are even interesting chocolate diets based on the fact that after a couple of small bars, the feeling of hunger quickly passes and the desire to overeat is no longer present. The accusation that chocolates spoil the skin is also not fair. The facts say: it is not cocoa that is to blame for this, but the amount of sugar that manufacturers add to candies, so you need to pay attention to ensuring that the products contain more cocoa butter and less sugar.

It is believed that chocolates can increase blood pressure due to the caffeine they contain. In fact, one bar contains six times less caffeine than a regular cup of espresso. Even cardiologists advise consuming several pieces of high-quality chocolate for preventive purposes, because the polyphenols it contains have a beneficial effect on the functioning of the cardiovascular system and blood circulation.

“We won’t stand behind the price”

Most major exporters of cocoa beans and butter ship raw materials from Africa, where special varieties of cocoa are grown en masse. Growing such a planting is not an easy task: the fact is that the tree’s lifespan is 200 years, but the fruiting period is almost 10 years shorter and rarely reaches 25 years. Therefore, those trees that supply raw materials to the chocolate industry today were planted several years ago.

Nowadays, the plantings are being restored very poorly; in addition, cases of their complete destruction due to various diseases or drought have become more frequent, which makes the price of cocoa butter and cocoa beans higher and higher. It is possible that in a couple of generations, chocolate desserts will become a luxury available only to the elite.

At the moment, the most expensive chocolate delight is the Le Chocolate Box. The manufacturer was an American jewelry company, and it did not deviate from its pricing principles, so a box of these chocolates costs $1.5 million. This discouraging price can be explained simply: the interesting and unusual “filling” is bracelets, rings, earrings and other jewelry with diamonds and sapphires.

Mayan treasures

Historians know that the Mayans were big fans of the chocolate drink. Their name sounded like “chocolatl” - “water with bitterness”. The technology for making this drink was interesting and quite complex, but this could not stop real gourmets. The Mayans collected the beans and left them in the open sun to ferment, then baked them in a clay pot. Then the shells were removed from the beans and crushed using a special device - a Metate crusher.

In order to achieve a refined taste, spicy additives were added to the ground mass. This blank was used to make briquettes, which were delivered to those thirsty for a hot drink. The briquette was broken and brewed in water until foam appeared. One of the fanatical lovers of this chocolate drink was Montezuma, the most famous of the Aztec emperors.

The ruler’s love acquired manic proportions: in a day he could drink about 50 cups of the drink. For him, honey, thick agave juice and vanilla tree bark were added to the dessert. Archaeologists have established the fact that after death, several cans of chocolate were left in the burial place next to Montezuma’s body, so as not to deprive the emperor of his favorite treat in the afterlife.

The special position of cocoa in the Mayan civilization made it a kind of currency. Cocoa beans could be used to purchase many goods and services. For example, a turkey carcass could be purchased for 20 cocoa beans, the cost of a slave was 100 beans, and the services of a priestess of love were valued at 10 beans. The first “counterfeiters” appeared there, passing off painted clay fakes as real beans.

In the 16th century, chocolate became one of the first products that Columbus brought to the Old World. The conquistadors did not particularly like this taste, but the interesting, invigorating aroma immediately gained a huge number of admirers throughout Europe.

Who grows cocoa

It has been established that the first chocolate bar was produced by the Cadbury confectionery company in 1842. This happened in England, but since then production has spread throughout the world. In the early days, the industry thrived on the slaves who toiled on the plantations.

Nowadays, millions of people who eat chocolate every day most often do not realize that about 900 cocoa beans are needed to make one such bar weighing a kilogram. In order to grow and harvest the required amount of cocoa, enormous human labor is still needed. Since 70% of chocolate raw materials are grown in Africa, where the use of technology is impractical due to the cheapness of human labor, even now a large percentage of plantation workers are children. Experts have established the fact that African chocolate farms employ a huge number of children under the age of 14 years.

Many of them come here in search of food and at least some kind of salary, and some are sold into slavery by relatives. Often employers treat them the same as livestock. All these children have never in their lives tried the product they have been working on all their lives.

How much chocolate is in chocolate

It would be more correct to call this interesting product chocolate-containing. This is explained by the fact that different varieties contain different amounts of cocoa mass and cocoa butter. The highest figure - 60% - is typical for the black bitter variety, which is rarely enjoyed by children, but is often appreciated by adults.

In dark varieties, the content of the main component is almost two times lower and amounts to 35%, but more sugar is added here.

The dairy variety was invented relatively recently. It was made by mixing 10% cocoa powder and milk powder, cream or condensed milk. This variety was invented with the participation of one entrepreneur, whose name is now known throughout the world - Nestle. Over the course of several decades, Henri Nestlé became one of the largest businessmen in this industry.

White chocolate is made without adding cocoa powder; the recipe contains only fruit oil. There are connoisseurs who prefer to eat pieces of pure cocoa butter as dessert, enjoying the interesting aroma and delicate taste, without being distracted by the sweetness of sugar. Doctors and nutritionists say that the higher the cocoa content and the lower the amount of other additives, the higher the benefits of this dessert.

Country of sweet tooth

It’s not for nothing that Swiss and Belgian chocolatiers are considered the best in the world. It has been established that it is in these countries that chocolate treats are eaten the most. According to statistics, for every resident of Switzerland there is almost 12 kg of this dessert per year, and for every resident of Belgium - 11 kg. Not only adults are taken into account, but even infants who cannot yet bite off even a small piece.

The most famous dessert in the world is no less loved in Germany, where every resident of the country buys 11 kg of bars per year. At the opposite pole of the love for chocolates is Japan: here the consumption of cocoa products stopped at 2.2 kg per person per year.

War and sweets

An interesting fact is that during World War II, chocolate was included in the food program to feed soldiers. This interesting decision was wise, since the constant presence of this product in the diet gave several advantages at once. Doctors have long known the excellent pain-relieving properties of chocolate products. This happens when endorphins, produced from the satisfaction of taste buds, enter the brain. In addition, caffeine and theobromine can quickly increase the body's energy production. Energy drinks also produce the same effect, but after them there is a catastrophic depletion of strength, which is not observed after chocolate treats.

But in the realities of the army, another problem arose - excessive consumption of delicious dessert. For this, an unusual and interesting decision was made: the taste was specially modified so that it would not be very successful, and this saved the soldiers from abusing and quickly eating chocolates.

This was not the only such episode. A similar diet was developed for participants in the military operation Desert Storm. Military doctors, together with specialists from Hershey’s, created interesting bars with an unusual formula. Since the operation was carried out in a hot area and the melting point of cocoa butter is 34°C, the bars were heat-resistant so as not to melt prematurely. They easily withstood temperatures up to 60°C, and did not melt either in the hands or in the mouth.

But wartime use was not limited to diet. The German military developed an explosive in the form of a chocolate bar. When they tried to break it, the device detonated and exploded.

Libido of a sweet tooth

Historians have established an interesting fact: the famous mistress of Louis XV, Madame Pompadour, not only loved to eat chocolate, but considered this delicacy to be the key to her vibrant sex life. The Marquis de Sade, who is still considered the first sexologist in the world, attached no less importance to this product.

This interesting point of view has been confirmed by scientists. Studies have found that the substances contained in cocoa beans increase libido, increase the intensity of sex life and make achieving orgasm faster. This rule applies to a greater extent to women, but often the same effect is observed in men.

A relative of opium

It is widely believed that systematic consumption of chocolate can cause addiction. Of all the chemicals it contains, caffeine and theobromine can cause this effect. But their concentration is so low that to develop drug addiction, you need to eat a half-kilogram bar every day for several months. It’s not easy to overcome such a dose of sweets.

Dear friends!

Especially for you, we have collected the most interesting facts about chocolate in one article to introduce you to the amazing and very ancient history of this delicacy, full of legends and unusual events.

Garden of the Wizard Quetzalcoatl

There have been many beautiful stories and legends about the appearance of chocolate. The Aztecs had a belief about the heavenly origin of cocoa seeds. They considered the chocolate tree sacred, and its fruits the food of the gods, bestowing strength and wisdom. The legend of Quetzalcoatl says that a wizard who lived among the Aztecs built a wonderful garden in which cocoa trees grew in abundance. People collected their fruits and prepared a healing drink. The garden was so good that Quetzalcoatl became proud of the work of his hands, for which he was punished by the harsh gods. Distraught, he destroyed all the plantings, except for one single tree, which miraculously managed to survive, to the delight of the people.

Montezuma's favorite drink

According to another legend, the Indian leader Montezuma loved to treat himself to a drink made from cocoa beans - his daily diet included 50 cups of chocolate. The Aztecs called the drink a little differently - chocolatl, where choco meant “foam” and latl - “water”. The drink for Montezuma was prepared in a special way - roasted cocoa beans were ground with grains of milk corn, softening the bitter taste with honey, agave juice and vanilla. The chocolatl was then poured into a small glass made of gold and precious stones.

By the way, during the time of the Mayan Indians, the value of cocoa fruits was so high that they were used as a means of payment: for 10 fruits you could get a rabbit, for 100 fruits you could get a slave.

Men's drink

At first, the drink made from ground cocoa beans had a tart, bitter taste and a bright aroma, which is why it was consumed mainly by men. In 1700, milk began to be added to chocolate, which significantly softened its taste.

"The Chocolate Lady" by Jean Etienne Lyotard

The 18th-century Swiss painter was inspired by the miraculous drink to create his most famous painting. In the painting “The Beautiful Chocolate Girl,” a servant girl holds a tray with a cup of hot chocolate.

The royal's personal chocolatier

When the marriage of Louis XVI and the Austrian princess Marie Antoinette took place in 1770, a new position appeared at the French court - the queen's personal chocolatier. The court chocolate master created new types of the famous delicacy, which have not only an original taste, but also a healing effect. They used orchid petals, which give vigor, orange blossoms, which have a calming effect, and almond milk to improve digestion.

Chocolate as medicine

Medieval healers often used the healing properties of chocolate in the fight against various diseases. Cardinal Richelieu himself drank a drink made from cocoa beans as a medicine at the insistence of the famous healer Christopher Ludwig Hoffmann. It is known that in Belgium it was pharmacists who were the first to produce chocolate.

Some more interesting facts about chocolate:

— the temperature at which a chocolate bar melts is slightly lower than the temperature of the human body, which is why it softly “melts” in the mouth;

— the word “chocolate” is translated as “food of the gods”;

- the biggest fans of chocolate live in Switzerland: each Swiss consumes about 10 kg of this sweetness per year;

— 15% of all women treat themselves to a piece of chocolate every day;

- the heaviest chocolate bar was produced in Italy and weighed 2228 kg;

- the tallest chocolate tower (6.4 m) was built by New York confectioners: its construction took 30 hours and a whole ton of chocolate!

Today chocolate is no longer exotic, but a pleasure accessible to everyone. New cooking technologies have made its taste richer and more varied, and chocolate masters work real miracles, revealing new facets of this magical product.

Disputes about the origin, benefits and dangers of hot chocolate are still ongoing and will never stop. The history of the fragrant drink is interesting and controversial, which, of course, is reflected in the facts about hot chocolate.

For some reason, many people believe that black and milk hot chocolate are harmful, while white chocolate is healthy. Scientists have dispelled this myth. They proved that black hot chocolate contains more antioxidants than milk and white chocolate. A sip or two of this dessert will help you recover after heavy physical activity. A lot has also been said about the amount of microelements and vitamins in black hot chocolate. In addition, scientists at Harvard University cited another fact about hot chocolate as evidence of the benefits of the fragrant drink: periodic consumption of this dessert (namely the black variety) on average prolongs life by a year.

Dentists are known to be unimpressed with hot chocolate because it allegedly causes tooth decay. This opinion is partly erroneous, since research has revealed that the fragrant drink contains special substances that have an antiseptic effect. They destroy bacteria that contribute to the destruction of enamel. If there is one thing that has a detrimental effect on your teeth, it is the glucose contained in hot chocolate. However, this problem can be easily solved by following a number of simple hygiene rules. But this fact about hot chocolate does not give a reason to consume it in huge quantities; there should be moderation in everything!

Contrary to popular belief, hot chocolate does not cause acne. This was proven back in the 1960s by the American doctor Fulto. For several weeks in a row, under his watchful eye, dozens of teenagers in the States drank hot chocolate in huge quantities. At the same time, the subjects were divided into two groups: one group consumed the real product, the other - an imitation, which only looked and tasted like real hot chocolate. During the experiment, the teenagers' skin was not harmed! Of course, some components, reacting with each other, can contribute to the occurrence of acne, but this is the exception rather than the rule.

All over the world, hot chocolate is considered to be what in our country is commonly called cocoa. For some reason, in Russia they believe that hot chocolate must be a sweet, viscous drink that needs to be “scraped” out of the cup with a spoon. However, many centuries ago, when the delicacy first appeared, such a clear division between hot chocolate and cocoa did not exist.

.Until the nineteenth century, hot chocolate was not so much a dessert as a medicine.

Recently, archaeologists made a sensational discovery: traces of theobromine (a substance that is part of cocoa) were found in ancient vessels from which the ancient Aztecs drank hot chocolate. Clay containers can presumably be dated back to 1100-1200 BC. e.

Initially, hot chocolate was used by the ancient Indians as a ritual drug. Such a drink could only be consumed by a select circle, which included shamans, men from noble families, future ritual victims and warriors. By the way, at that time hot chocolate had a rather unpleasant taste of refried cocoa beans.

It is believed that the ancient Aztecs drank dozens of cups of hot chocolate a day. We do not undertake to judge how true this fact about hot chocolate is, but it is still not worth repeating this for your own safety.

Scientists at Oxford University and the Polytechnic University of Valencia (Spain) have concluded that the color of the cup affects the richness of the taste of hot chocolate. As you know, the perception of a product’s bouquet is influenced by a variety of factors not directly related to food. 57 participants in the experiment assessed the taste palette of samples of the same hot chocolate, poured into containers of different colors - orange, white, red and cream (the cups were white inside). In a tasty study, participants concluded that the drink would be richer if drunk from cream and orange colored cups.

On the other hand, no matter what color the cup is, it all depends on the quality of the hot chocolate. Choose only proven brands of healthy dessert (you can find them in our online store) and enjoy its taste!

It is impossible to imagine celebrating the New Year without a chic table with an abundance of salads, hot and cold appetizers, champagne and tangerines. Although eating habits tend to change over time, the festive table on December 31 remains traditional in many families from year to year.

Recipes for dishes loved since childhood are passed down from generation to generation, so that on the most magical day of the year you can arrange a real feast of taste. What dishes are usually prepared for the New Year and what their calorie content is, we will find out further.

Eggs stuffed with various fillings are an integral part of the New Year's table. This dish, loved by both adults and children, has been known since the 16th century. But then only nobles could afford it. Now absolutely every family can afford to cook stuffed eggs for the holiday, and you can choose the filling for them to your taste: with onions, mushrooms, liver, crab sticks, canned fish or caviar - there are a lot of variations.

Depending on the ingredients, you can make the snack dietary or, conversely, very filling and high-calorie. Average nutritional value of a dish – 150 kcal/100 g.

Red caviar became available to the general population at the end of the 90s of the last century, and since then, sandwiches with it have become a classic of the New Year's table. This appetizer is very easy to prepare and is perfect for a holiday buffet. Most often, a small amount of caviar is placed on top of bread spread with butter. Some housewives, in order to reduce the calorie content of the dish (after all, it is really quite high - 315 kcal/100 g.) use cream or cottage cheese.

Fish caviar is the leader among products in terms of protein content, which is almost completely digestible. Therefore, sandwiches with red caviar are not only a tasty New Year's dish, but also healthy.

Game (duck, goose) baked with apples

Game baked with apples in the oven is a traditional New Year and Christmas hot dish since the 18th-19th centuries. Symbolizes prosperity, peace and well-being in the family, confirming the old saying “A bird on the table is a holiday in the house.” In addition to duck, goose, hazel grouse or chicken are baked, and stuffed not only with apples, but also with pears, prunes, oranges, and pineapples.

To add a special taste, the bird is seasoned with red wine sauce and all kinds of spices. You can serve the dish with a side dish of potatoes, buckwheat or any vegetables. Calorie content – ​​about 250 kcal/100 g.

Pelmeni are a traditional New Year's dish in Russia, especially in the Urals and Siberia. They first appeared in China in the 13th century as a symbol of wealth and family unity, and in Russia until 1817 they were considered exotic. Since the times of the USSR, it has been customary in almost every family to gather around the table a few days before the holidays and make dumplings (hundreds of them) together.

This allows the hostess to save time on preparing treats on New Year's Eve, and to use supplies in case of unexpected guests. You can easily take them with you outside or to the dacha and cook them in a pot (for those who like to celebrate a holiday in the fresh air).

Hot dumplings with meat are served with sour cream or mustard (optionally with ketchup, mayonnaise or vinegar); they are perfect as a snack on New Year's Eve. Energy value of the dish – 275 kcal/100 g.

For most people, jellied meat is associated with winter and the New Year's feast. This is a fairly simple dish, but not for everyday use. Its preparation takes a lot of time (6-8 hours for cooking the bones + time for hardening), so it is usually prepared a couple of days before the New Year celebration.

Jellied meat was invented by the nomadic peoples of northern Russia - it was they who first noticed that broth cooked from pork legs or brains quickly hardens in the cold (due to the presence of jelly-forming substances). You could easily take it with you on a hunt and heat it up over a fire. Due to its high nutritional value ( 300 kcal/100 g.) the dish quickly satisfied hunger and warmed us in cold weather.

Historians say that jellied meat in Rus' is a traditional food for servants and slaves in rich houses. After the feast, everything that was left uneaten was collected from the host's table, poured with hot broth, and set out in the cold to cool. The next morning it was a tasty and nutritious snack.

Jellied fish (meat)

Despite the fact that every year we hear from our favorite movie on TV screens: “How disgusting this jellied fish of yours is,” this dish appears on the New Year’s table every year in many families. You just need to know how to cook it. Jellied appeared in Russia in the 19th century thanks to the imagination of a French chef. Jellied meat was taken as the basis, but for the new dish it was not the leftover food that was chosen, but the best cuts of meat or fish. They were not crushed, but thinly sliced. Unlike jellied meat, jellied meat requires gelatin. Sprigs of herbs, boiled vegetables, lemon slices or half an egg are added to the dish.

A beautifully decorated fish aspic is a bright decoration for a New Year's feast. The dish is low in calories - only 50 kcal/100 g.

No other confectionery product symbolizes the New Year and Christmas so vividly as gingerbread. They come in a variety of shapes: from people and Christmas trees to houses and cakes. In Western countries they have been traditionally prepared for holidays since the 13th century. The German city of Nuremberg is considered the world capital of gingerbread. At medieval Christmas fairs in European cities, it was always possible to purchase products made from ginger dough in the shape of snowflakes, animals, birds, and angels.

In Russia, gingerbread cookies became popular not so long ago, but many have already fallen in love with them and have become an integral part of the New Year celebration. Children especially like ginger delicacy - it attracts attention with its funny shapes, tasty and aromatic. The nutritional value - 350 kcal/100 g.

The cake, which Russians call “Napoleon,” appeared in France in the 18th century. There it still bears the name “Millefeuille” - “Thousand Layers”. In Russia, they learned about this dessert in 1912 - on the centennial anniversary of the expulsion of Napoleon Bonaparte’s army from Moscow. The cake was then triangular in shape and resembled the famous headdress of the French emperor. This is where the name of the layer cake with custard came from, which was often prepared for the New Year. This is quite a high-calorie dish ( 330 kcal/100 g.) and takes a long time to prepare. But even this does not prevent it from being a traditional decoration of the holiday table from year to year.

Salad “herring under a fur coat”

The history of the origin of this popular New Year's dish goes back to the ancient Scandinavian countries, where herring was always in abundance. The combination of salted fish under a “coat” of sweet boiled vegetables gives the salad an unusual taste that is loved by many peoples. The appearance of the dish in Russia is associated with the legend of the innkeeper Anastas Bogomilov.

So that the regulars of his establishment would have fewer drunken fights, he ordered the cook to come up with a good snack. Without thinking twice, he mixed herring fillets (which at that time was a cheap and accessible product), onions, boiled beets, potatoes and carrots in a dish. Since it was the eve of 1919, the salad was declared a symbol of the coming New Year, uniting the powerful class of the proletariat (beets, due to their color, served as the personification of the revolution). The working class came up with a slogan for the dish: “Boycott and anathema to chauvinism and decadence” (abbreviation SHUBA.)

Whether to believe this legend or not is a personal matter for everyone. We love “Herring Salad under a Fur Coat” for its taste, availability of ingredients, beneficial and dietary properties (calorie content - 150 kcal).

The most popular dish for New Year

The most popular dish for the New Year is the Olivier salad. The author of the most popular dish on the New Year's table - Olivier salad - is the chef of the Moscow Hermitage restaurant, Frenchman Lucien Olivier. The classic recipe from the early 19th century included the following ingredients: boiled crayfish tails; hazel grouse and partridge fillets; black caviar; capers; potatoes eggs; salted cucumbers. But even mixing these ingredients, other chefs could not repeat the success of L. Olivier. They did not know the main secret of the dish - the recipe for the special Provencal sauce.

Over time, the components in the Olivier salad changed to more familiar and accessible ones: instead of hazel grouse, they began to add boiled beef, ham or sausage, capers were replaced with green peas. Some housewives add boiled carrots or apples to the salad.

In Soviet times, it was difficult to buy mayonnaise and peas, but for the New Year holidays they still tried to get these products in order to traditionally start the feast with Olivier salad.
The calorie content of the dish varies depending on the ingredients and is 180-250 kcal/100 g.

According to ancient tradition, housewives put out their most favorite and delicious dishes on the New Year's table. Salads include “Olivier” and “Under a Fur Coat,” and for main course, dumplings and baked game. Popular snacks on New Year's Eve include jellied meat, jellied fish, sandwiches with red caviar and stuffed eggs. For dessert, gingerbread and Napoleon cake are traditionally served. All dishes are quite high in calories, but once a year everyone is allowed to have a “belly feast”. If you take the time to prepare at least a few of them, the memories of New Year's Eve will remain the warmest and most sincere.

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At different periods of time, people sought to lose weight, but did not always choose normal and healthy ways to do this. History knows many very strange and sometimes dangerous diets that humanity has experienced. And here are just a few of them.

Diet on alcohol

The first person who decided to try a very strange way to lose weight was the British ruler William the Conqueror. The period of his reign occurred in the 11th century, not the best time for England. At that time, people really had no time for luxury in food, so people practically did not experience problems with weight; people were more worried not about how to lose weight, but about how not to die of hunger.

But overweight people, on the contrary, were an example of luxury and wealth. The then ruler met all the characteristics of the elite of those times, and, according to legend, he decided to lose weight after the horses were unable to transport him. It was then that Wilhelm completely eliminated food from his diet and switched to beer and wine. Whether he managed to lose weight on such a “hot” diet is unknown, because the inventor of the unusual diet himself soon fell from his horse and died.

Vinegar diet

Lord Byron always wanted to look perfect, graceful and young, so diets were commonplace for him. To have a noble pallor, before eating food, he soaked it in vinegar, and after that he drank acid, which he had previously diluted with water. He died at the age of 36 and, as the autopsy showed, the body of the deceased was much older than its owner in terms of its condition.

Chewing diet

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the world learned about the Horace Fletcher diet. The nutritionist insisted that food should be chewed at least 32 times before swallowing it. If the condition was not met, then this was recognized as a signal from the body that the food needed to be spat out. At the same time, it made absolutely no difference what exactly the person ate - even semolina porridge had to be chewed a given number of times. Surprisingly, this idea brought Horace millions.

Explosive Diet

In the 1930s, American doctors noticed a wave of active weight loss among those who worked in warehouses storing explosives and insect repellents. After this, it turned out that the culprit was dinitrophenol, which was part of all stored goods. This substance accelerates metabolic processes in the body and eliminates fat reserves. Skillful work by marketers and, voila, dinitrophenol is already part of weight loss drugs and they are sold throughout the country. And everything would have been fine, only after this a wave of vision loss and death swept among those losing weight.

HCG diet

In the middle of the twentieth century, one English doctor introduced his own version of the diet - consume no more than 500 kcal per day and receive the hCG hormone (in simple terms, the pregnancy hormone). It is no secret that any hormonal invasion of the body does not go unnoticed, and even then such a diet did not lead to a happy ending - those who wanted to lose weight were constantly diagnosed with depression, migraines and thrombosis.

Worm diet

In the same mid-twentieth century, but already in the United States, an equally strange diet flourished, which involved the use of tablets with worms. The diet gained popularity thanks to opera singer Maria Callas, who miraculously lost 35 kg in just 16 months.

A popular advertising campaign of the first half of the twentieth century said: replace candy with a cigarette. And despite the harmfulness of this method of losing weight, then teenage girls, models, and ballerinas began to actively “smoke” in order to maintain an ideal weight and achieve perfection.

Sleepy diet

When we sleep, we don't eat - a very simple truth that Americans understood in the 70s. But Elvis Presley, who was a big fan of this approach, learned this especially well. But the diet was based not on the physical need for sleep, but on handfuls of sleeping pills. Under the power of such pills, those trying to lose weight could stay in bed for several days, and some of them never woke up at all.

"Horns and hooves"

In the 70s, Robert Lynn invented a wonderful drink that promised to suppress appetite. And it’s worth noting that he coped with the task 100%.

The doctor brewed his creation from waste from a cattle slaughterhouse, resulting in a kind of jelly. It was recommended to drink this instead of eating, and those who listened actually lost weight, which is not at all surprising, because a glass of such a brew contained less than 400 calories.

Diet "Hallelujah"

In the 90s, a pastor from the USA, together with his wife, invented a dietary nutrition system that led to God and health. It didn’t take long to choose a name for the food system; the farm on which the “divine” products grew was named in a similar way.

This diet was nothing more than a reduced-calorie vegetarian diet consisting solely of grains and vegetables. According to the authors of the diet, this is exactly the kind of food that was available in paradise, where Adam and Eve lived. Well, be that as it may, of all the above, this diet is the most harmless.