Through the study of history, you may be surprised to find that many originally ordinary things, after a long development, do not result in what you initially imagined. For example, the concept of weight loss—one would never think it is actually a person’s name and comes from an unrelated profession.
As the level of civilization in human society continues to improve, and as people’s material and cultural lives become vastly richer, “obesity” is no longer seen as a normal physiological phenomenon. From an aesthetic perspective, the praise of being “big-hearted and plump” has also diminished; from a medical point of view, this phenomenon can become pathological, as it may lead to a series of diseases. Thus, the term “weight loss” came into being and quickly became a commercial model, with numerous methods available. However, many of these are based on commercial purposes and trends, with only a few that are truly scientific and effective. Yet, one of the most effective weight loss methods surprisingly comes from the funeral industry, along with an effective recipe.
The term “Banting” literally means “diet (to lose weight)” in English, and you may not know that if you seek the etymology of this word in English, it originally belonged to a person’s name.
This most ordinary and also most effective weight loss method originated from the 19th-century British funeral industry businessman William Banting. At that time, people’s understanding of the purpose of weight loss was not the same as that of modern people regarding obesity, and there was not much “research” or “proof” in medicine. Most likely, it was due to inconvenience in movement, or at least, that’s what I think.
William Banting had long been troubled by “obesity issues” and kept trying to lose weight, so he experimented with various diets. Initially, he thought that his body gained weight quickly and easily because he was eating too well and too much, so he began to diet. However, after a long period of dieting, he felt nothing but hunger and did not lose weight. Well, since that didn’t work, he tried something else and began a water therapy diet, but still saw no results, and then he switched methods, incorporating exercise, but ultimately failed at all.
William Banting grew somewhat discouraged; he felt it wasn’t the methods that were wrong, but could his obesity be a condition? Unwilling to give up, William Banting decided to see a doctor. Perhaps there had not been in-depth medical research into obesity at that time, so the doctor also had no better solutions and only gave him some suggestions to try. Therefore, under the doctor’s advice, William Banting adopted a sugar-free diet used by diabetes patients of that time. Well, he was back to square one—dieting—but unexpectedly achieved remarkable results. Let’s take a look at what this recipe included.
Banting’s low-carbohydrate diet:
Breakfast: 5-6 ounces of beef/lamb/pork kidney/fried fish/smoked meat (no pork or veal); a cup of coffee without milk and sugar; a small amount of biscuits or a slice of toast; Dinner: 5-6 ounces of fish or meat (except salmon, lobster, eel, pork, veal); a small amount of vegetables (except potatoes, carrots, parsnips, beets, round radishes); 1 ounce of bread; a small amount of fruit; 1 sugar-free pudding; a small amount of poultry or game; 2-3 cups of wine (no beer, sweet wine, or champagne).
In 1863, after successfully losing weight, William Banting compiled a small book summarizing his experiences with weight loss, recommending a low-carbohydrate approach to those wishing to lose weight. This weight loss method sparked a tremendous social reaction and many people began to follow it, with many models also using the approach advocated by William Banting to control their weight.
“Banting” thus transformed from the surname of a funeral industry businessman into a synonym for diet-induced weight loss.
