26 Drinking Man’s Diet Sold Millions
The Drinking Man’s Diet became a 1960s ancestor of the Atkins and paleo diets, promoting meat, alcohol, and carbohydrate counting instead of calorie counting. A cosmetics executive and aerial photographer named Robert Cameron self-published the roughly 50-page book in 1962 after trying a diet a woman had given him and losing weight without abandoning martinis. Despite fierce criticism from nutritionists, the book sold 2.4 million copies in 13 languages. Cameron lived to age 98 and continued enjoying roast duck and Burgundy.
27. Despite its popularity, a gluten-free diet is not inherently healthier for people without celiac disease, gluten sensitivity, or another medical reason to avoid gluten. Replacing refined breads, pastas, and cookies with fruits and vegetables may improve a diet, but processed gluten-free substitutes often contain less fiber, vitamins, and minerals than their gluten-containing counterparts.
28. In 2015, scientists examining victims of Mount Vesuvius’s 79 A.D. eruption at Pompeii found “perfect teeth,” which they linked to a healthy diet and high fluorine levels in the air and water near the volcano.
29. In 1972, the York Archaeological Trust uncovered what may be the largest fossilized specimen of human feces ever found beneath a future Lloyds Bank branch in York, England. The ninth-century coprolite measured 8 inches long and 2 inches wide and came from a Viking-age resident whose diet consisted largely of meat and bread. Several hundred parasite eggs revealed that the person had been riddled with mawworms and whipworms. After the artifact broke into three pieces during a 2003 exhibition, conservators reconstructed it, and it has remained at the Jorvik Viking Centre since 2008.
30. A University of Washington study reported by NPR found that poor diets were linked to more deaths worldwide than smoking. Published in The Lancet, researchers analyzed dietary data from 195 countries and connected roughly 11 million annual deaths to diseases including heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. Israel, France, Spain, and Japan had some of the lowest diet-related death rates, while the United States ranked 43rd. Meanwhile, approximately 800 million people lacked enough food, and 1.9 billion were overweight, making hunger and obesity two forms of malnutrition.
31 Detox Diets Lack Scientific Evidence
A 2015 review published in the Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics found no compelling evidence that detox diets support weight management or eliminate toxins. Because these products carry financial costs, unsubstantiated claims, and potential health risks, the researchers concluded that health professionals should discourage their use.
32. Beer, bread, and cheese have been staples of the British diet since antiquity, while bread and cheese sustained rural laborers for centuries. Although the phrase “ploughman’s luncheon” appeared once in 1837, the modern term became established during the 1950s through a campaign designed to sell more cheese. After wartime cheese rationing ended, the Cheese Bureau promoted the meal in pubs, and the Milk Marketing Board expanded the campaign nationwide during the 1960s.
33. A seafood-heavy diet can throw off radiocarbon dating of human bones by hundreds of years, making the deceased appear older than they truly were. This marine reservoir effect occurs because older carbon passes through the ocean food chain before fish and other marine life transfer it to the humans who eat them. Affected samples typically appear about 400 radiocarbon years too old, although the difference can reach 800 to 1,200 years in Arctic regions. In 2018, researchers used the effect to correct the dates of an English Viking burial containing roughly 300 bodies, placing it in the late 800s rather than across several centuries.
34. Wendigo psychosis is a disputed culture-bound syndrome historically reported among Algonquian-speaking First Nations in Canada, characterized by an intense craving for human flesh and fear of becoming a cannibal. During the winter of 1878, a Plains Cree trapper from Alberta named Swift Runner lost his eldest son to starvation before killing and eating his wife and five remaining children. Because emergency food supplies were available at a Hudson’s Bay Company post only 25 miles away, the case was classified as wendigo psychosis rather than survival cannibalism. Swift Runner later confessed, and authorities executed him at Fort Saskatchewan.
35. Japanese TV programs sometimes display the caption “The staff ate it later” when food appears onscreen, indicating that it was not discarded after filming. Stations reportedly began using the message after viewers complained about variety shows wasting or mishandling food, reflecting Japan’s strong social aversion to food waste. Some production crews say they genuinely finish the leftover food, although television personalities and commentators have questioned whether the caption is always truthful.
36 McDonald’s Food Matched Sports Supplements
A 2015 study found that after a 90-minute endurance workout, 11 highly trained male athletes showed no differences in insulin, glucose, cholesterol, or triglyceride levels whether they recovered with sports supplements or McDonald’s food. The supplement meals included organic peanut butter, Clif Shot Bloks, Gatorade, Cytomax powder, and PowerBars, while the fast-food meals contained hotcakes, orange juice, a hash brown, a hamburger, fries, and Coke. Both diets provided roughly equal calories, carbohydrates, and protein, and each athlete returned one week later to try the other diet. The athletes also completed a 20-kilometer cycling trial equally quickly, with no significant difference in muscle glycogen recovery.
37. Neanderthal dental plaque showed that no single typical Paleo diet existed, with some individuals eating mostly meat while others appeared entirely vegetarian. In 2017, researchers sequenced food DNA preserved in plaque from five Neanderthals found at Spy Cave in Belgium and El Sidron Cave in Spain. One Belgian Neanderthal ate woolly rhinoceros, wild sheep, and mushrooms, while two Spanish Neanderthals consumed mushrooms, pine nuts, tree bark, and moss with no detectable traces of meat. One Spanish individual with a dental abscess and intestinal parasite also consumed poplar bark and Penicillium mold, possibly as natural medicine.
38. According to a historical anecdote, Persian physician and early psychiatrist Avicenna treated a malnourished Persian prince who refused food because he believed he was a cow ready for slaughter. Avicenna arrived carrying a knife and impersonated a butcher, but after examining the prince, he declared the cow too lean to kill and ordered him fattened first. The patient eagerly accepted food, gradually regained his strength, abandoned the delusion, and completely recovered.
39. UCLA researchers repeatedly heard patients say they had not felt depressed or anxious until their gut problems began. In a small 2013 study, they divided 36 healthy women ages 18 to 55 into groups that consumed probiotic yogurt twice daily, a dairy product without probiotics, or nothing for four weeks. Brain scans showed altered activity and connectivity in regions involved in emotion, cognition, and sensation among the women who ate the probiotic yogurt. The study supported a two-way connection between the gut and brain.
40. A single polar bear liver contains enough vitamin A to kill as many as 52 adults. Polar bears accumulate vitamin A produced by marine algae lower in the food chain, and their bodies store it in the liver because it cannot easily flush out this fat-soluble vitamin. Just 0.1 grams from a well-fed bear can supply the human recommended daily allowance of 0.9 milligrams. When divided into daily portions of that size, one liver would last for 143 years.
41 Popcorn Thrived Through Two Crises
During the Great Depression, popcorn became popular because a bag cost just 5 to 10 cents. While other businesses failed, popcorn sales provided income for struggling farmers and entrepreneurs. During World War II, sugar rationing reduced candy production, prompting Americans to eat three times as much popcorn as they had before.
42. Around 1800, American-born British scientist and inventor Benjamin Thompson, known as Count Rumford, created Rumford’s Soup as an early scientific attempt to produce cheap, nutritious food. Recipes combined barley, dried peas, potatoes, and sour beer, although later versions introduced the potatoes. Thompson used the thick soup to feed poor people, workhouse residents, and prisoners before establishing soup kitchens across several German cities. It remained a common base for inexpensive military rations in Central Europe through much of the 19th and 20th centuries.
43. Teff, Ethiopia’s staple grain, contains abundant protein, fiber, and minerals and has attracted “superfood” comparisons to quinoa. After health-food demand in the United States and Europe sent quinoa prices soaring in Bolivia, Ethiopia feared that global teff demand could threaten its own food supply. In 2006, the government banned exports of raw teff, although it continued allowing processed products such as injera to leave the country. Ethiopia partially lifted the ban in 2015 after improved farming techniques and mechanization increased yields by 40 percent.
44. Perpetual stews are often described as common during the Middle Ages, with cooks rarely or never emptying the pot. They continually added liquid and whatever meat, vegetables, or other ingredients were available, allowing old and new flavors to blend.
45. American saloons began offering complimentary hard-boiled and pickled eggs during the mid-1800s, with New Orleans adopting the free-lunch tradition in the 1860s. The eggs gave customers enough sustenance to keep them from becoming sloppy drunks while also making them thirsty enough to order more drinks. Eggs suited bars because bartenders already used them in punches and flips, while their shells protected them from customers’ hands. Health regulations eventually helped drive complimentary hard-boiled eggs from most bar counters.
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
46 Roman Punch Reached Titanic Tables
Formal Gilded Age dinners paused between the fish and roast courses to serve Roman punch, a frozen rum-and-champagne slush meant to cleanse the palate. Also called punch à la romaine, it combined egg whites, rum, wine, citrus juice, and syrup before chefs poured it over crushed ice and topped it with champagne. The drink dessert later appeared among the courses served to the Titanic’s first-class passengers during their final dinner at sea. Hours later, the ship struck an iceberg and sank in the North Atlantic, killing roughly two-thirds of its more than 2,000 passengers and crew.
47. Corned beef and cabbage is not a traditional Irish dish; the original meal combines boiled back bacon with cabbage and potatoes. Bacon and cabbage became common in Ireland because families could grow their own vegetables and raise pigs. During the mid-to-late 19th century, Irish immigrants in the United States replaced bacon with cheaper, more readily available corned beef. The American adaptation eventually became a popular Saint Patrick’s Day meal.
48. An MRE, or Meal, Ready-to-Eat, may remain edible after 20 years if its package stays undamaged and the food remains in a cool, dry place.
49. In 1932, Oslo began providing its free, uncooked breakfast to every primary schoolchild before later extending it to older students. A typical meal contained whole-wheat bread, rye biscuits, cheese, milk, fruit, carrots, and a seasonal dose of cod-liver oil. A trial involving 130 poor children reported fewer skin problems and 25 percent more height gain than among children who did not receive the breakfast.
50. During the Middle Ages, dinner served as the day’s main meal and took place late in the morning, when diners did not need artificial lighting. Supper followed in the evening, but English diners gradually pushed dinner later during the late 17th and 18th centuries. The growing gap between breakfast and dinner created a need for lunch, while supper lost its place as a full meal and often became an evening snack.
RE: Fact #22 (Cooked Eggs Deliver More Protein) – This is basically true for all food. Fire is a pretty big deal.
RE: Fact #22 (Cooked Eggs Deliver More Protein) – Rocky would have been a lot better off if he actually learned to keep his guard up and block a punch instead of just walking face-first into fifty of them every round.
RE: Fact #50 (Lunch Appeared When Dinner Moved) – Working in hospitals or nursing homes, you get used to people over 70 calling their midday meal ‘dinner’. It causes so much confusion when I mention dinner and they get all mixed up, saying something like, ‘I just had dinner!’
My grandma does the big midday meal thing too. She refuses to call it lunch or supper because she insists she’s ‘not a farmer.’
RE: Fact #33 (Seafood Diets Distort Bone Dating) – On a related note, it’s incredibly hard to get accurate radiocarbon dating for anything after 1945 due to atomic testing.
Future archaeologists will be able to date us by the amount of microplastics in our remains.
RE: Fact #24 (Kudzu Offers Several Edible Parts) – Growing your own is actually illegal in a lot of the US South. It’s more like harvesting whatever you’re already unlucky enough to have growing on your property.
RE: Fact #38 (Avicenna’s Butcher Ruse Cured Delusion) – Funny, I was just reading about Avicenna last night. One of his quotes might be my new favorite: ‘The knowledge of anything, since all things have causes, is not acquired or complete unless it is known by its causes.’
RE: Fact #13 (Iceberg Lettuce Contains Mostly Water) – If we’re eating it for the crunch, calling it ‘no nutrients, just water’ is a massive upgrade.
RE: Fact #30 (Poor Diets Outkill Smoking Worldwide) – >…responsible for more deaths than smoking.” Serious question: since everyone eats, but not everyone smokes, what are the actual death rates per participant?
RE: Fact #28 (Pompeii Victims Had Perfect Teeth) – I’ve been there. The detail is incredible, though they almost look like artificial teeth because they’re so white. Back then, sugar was way too expensive to be a common habit.
RE: Fact #10 (Roman Gladiators Ate Mostly Plants) – Like the vast majority of Romans, gladiators ate mostly plant-based. Meat was a luxury for them.
Lentils were one of their staples, and that’s actually a great source of protein.
Meat would still be a luxury if the government didn’t subsidize it so hard.
RE: Fact #13 (Iceberg Lettuce Contains Mostly Water) – I have a friend who is allergic to everything under the sun, including lettuce. She told a botanist about it, and he just said, “Lettuce? That’s just crispy water!”
RE: Fact #49 (Oslo Breakfast Helped Children Grow) – My Norwegian grandma was 6’7″ and she never had the Oslo Breakfast. If she had eaten that in school back in ’32, she would have been catching geese with a rake.
A friend of mine once floated the theory that the reason there are so many Scandinavian supermodels is because the wars during the 20th century thinned out the male population, giving the survivors more options to pick partners they found attractive. I have no clue if that’s actually true or just totally offensive.
RE: Fact #40 (Polar Bear Liver Can Kill) – Why do they carry so much Vitamin A? How does that even help the bear survive up north?
RE: Fact #5 (Bruce Lee’s Hyponatraemia Death Theory) – It could easily be the Equagesic he took that night. People have been pointing to that for ages.
Cerebral edema from painkillers is way less common than hyponatremia. It’s actually pretty common for people, like marathon runners, to run into serious trouble with low sodium levels.
RE: Fact #29 (Viking Coprolite Revealed Intestinal Worms) – Holy sh*t, that is a beast. Not surprising the Viking left it behind for future generations to find. He must have been pretty proud of that one!
Pfft, that’s nothing. After being in the ICU on morphine for over a week without a bowel movement, laxatives finally got things moving. In one of those portable toilets, I dropped something 15 inches long and wider than Popeye’s forearm. I weighed 17 pounds less after that. RELEASE THE KRAKEN!
RE: Fact #13 (Iceberg Lettuce Contains Mostly Water) – My grandpa used to tuck leaves of iceberg lettuce into his hat when it was hot out. He claimed it kept his head cool and fit better than a regular hat liner.
RE: Fact #38 (Avicenna’s Butcher Ruse Cured Delusion) – Basically: ‘I’m a cow.’ ‘No, you’re not.’ ‘I’m a cow.’ ‘Then I’m a butcher.’ ‘I’m not a cow anymore.’
RE: Fact #1 (Potatoes And Buttermilk Sustained Ireland) – Guess we’re looking at buttermilk mashed potatoes with vitamins when the grocery bill gets too high.
Everyone gets a salt and pepper shaker for the year, but no other condiments allowed. I can see some influencer and businessman teaming up to market this as a ‘tough guy’ diet plan.
Throw in some cabbage and you’ve got colcannon, a classic Irish staple. It’s cheap, nutritious, and delicious. Grain porridges and beans are solid options too. Most traditional staples share those same traits: affordable, simple to make, and energy-dense enough to keep you going through a long day. If you live in a rural area, you can even forage for seasonal greens and herbs. Dandelions are super versatile, and things like spice bush or sumac, which is still common in many countries, are totally underutilized in the U.S. It’s wild how we’ve practically forgotten about our own native food sources.
RE: Fact #46 (Roman Punch Reached Titanic Tables) – It sounds like they figured if they messed up the roasts, they could just get the guests hammered so nobody would notice.
RE: Fact #26 (Drinking Man’s Diet Sold Millions) – Wait, you guys are actually losing weight on alcohol?
RE: Fact #17 (Dulse Seaweed Fries Like Bacon) – I have a hunch it doesn’t actually taste like bacon. My wife is vegan, and ten out of ten times something ‘tastes like’ bacon, it doesn’t. Some of it tastes okay, but they should just stop trying to mimic real food. Just be seaweed, you know?
RE: Fact #37 (Neanderthal Plaque Revealed Diverse Diets) – I don’t follow the diet myself, but I’m pretty sure it’s not meant to be a direct replica of what other species ate back then.
You’re right. It’s just a label for eating things that were available before we started farming wheat, basically hunter-gatherer food, whether that’s veggies or meat.
RE: Fact #32 (Ploughman’s Lunch Was Cheese Marketing) – I’m a fan of the Cheese Board. They really could have called it the Cheese Marketing Committee instead.
RE: Fact #26 (Drinking Man’s Diet Sold Millions) – This reminds me of that classic Allan Sherman song, “The Drinking Man’s Diet”: “Oh, I’m on the Drinking Man’s Diet, It came from a book I was loaned It’s really terrific and quite scientific And I’m half stoned. For breakfast some cornflakes and vodka, But cornflakes have carbohydrates So I don’t eat those fattening cornflakes, I eat the vodka straight. Drink, drink, everyone drink It’s not as bad as we used to think. With every Manhattan your stomach will flatten, So drink, drink, drink! The Air Force invented this diet, A fact which they hotly deny. Of course they deny it, cause this is the diet That got the Air Force high. For lunch you can have three martinis, What better lunch is there than that? But caution: do not eat the olives, Cause olives make you fat.”
RE: Fact #33 (Seafood Diets Distort Bone Dating) – I had to look up how radiocarbon dating works to refresh my memory. There’s 14C, which is radioactive, and 12C, which isn’t. The half-life of 14C is fixed, while 12C doesn’t decay. You compare the current ratio of the two to estimate an item’s age, then refine it with better data on past ratios. After that refresher, the explanation makes sense: since fish in hard water have different carbon levels, they end up incorporating ‘older’ carbon into their bodies, making them look much older than they really are when they fossilize.
Thank you. I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who found the explanation in the fact a bit confusing.
RE: Fact #1 (Potatoes And Buttermilk Sustained Ireland) – My mom lied to me. I loved potatoes as a kidand was always chastised that they were empty calories, nothing but starchy carbs. Later I learned they have more potassium than a banana, protein, fiber, vitamin c, and iron. Low in sugar too… Like there’s better things you can eat, like more nutritionally efficient, but they’re not bad at all.
RE: Fact #36 (McDonald’s Food Matched Sports Supplements) – I was at a 24-hour mountain bike race in Arizona once, and the winner of the solo group had a wild nutrition strategy. He just polished off a mini can of Pringles and a Coke after every single lap. Meanwhile, other pros had nutritionists constantly adjusting their intake. It was pretty impressive to see.
I’ve talked to ultra-marathon runners about this; things like chips are super easy to digest, which is exactly why they reach for them during runs.
RE: Fact #6 (High-Fiber Diets Reduce Calorie Absorption) – Hardly anyone gets enough fiber these days. I started swapping white flour for spelt and added way more beans, which helped a ton. It’s pretty concerning given how common colorectal issues are.
RE: Fact #24 (Kudzu Offers Several Edible Parts) – That stuff is a massively invasive species here in North America. It will absolutely destroy forests if you don’t keep it in check.
RE: Fact #36 (McDonald’s Food Matched Sports Supplements) – If you’re in great shape and burning calories at a high rate, standard dietary advice doesn’t always apply. Remember those pieces on Michael Phelps? The guy ate like a dozen eggs and two pounds of sausage every morning, and he’s clearly healthy. I have relatives in the South who lived off bacon, grits, eggs, buttery biscuits, fried chicken, and potato salad their whole lives, stayed thin, and lived to be 90. Of course, they were farmers working the fields every single day.
RE: Fact #20 (Leftover Spaghetti Killed Belgian Student) – The details in this story are tragic. It sounds like he wasn’t a typical food poisoning case, especially since the toxin was in the pasta but not the sauce. It’s a reminder of how dangerous those bacteria can be.
RE: Fact #12 (Nok Pottery Preserved Plant Diets) – I can’t wait for future anthropologists to dig up our plates. They’re going to be so confused by what we ate.
RE: Fact #11 (British Rationing Improved Wartime Health) – When oranges were first brought to Britain, people boiled them. Boiled oranges, classic British diet.
If it isn’t boiled to death, it isn’t British. I really miss my grandmother; she was the only one who could ruin gammon, peas, cabbage, and potatoes quite like that.
RE: Fact #20 (Leftover Spaghetti Killed Belgian Student) – I’m cautious if food has been sitting out at room temperature for a couple of hours, let alone an entire day. Five days is just wild.
RE: Fact #40 (Polar Bear Liver Can Kill) – Imagine being the first person to figure this out the hard way. Some guy who just crossed the land bridge from Siberia, kills his first polar bear, eats a bit of liver, and that’s it for him.
RE: Fact #35 (Japanese Television Displays Anti-Waste Caption) – The show “Taskmaster” always makes it a point to say they eat any food used in tasks afterward or donate it to a food charity if it’s inedible.
RE: Fact #12 (Nok Pottery Preserved Plant Diets) – This would be around 1500 BC. By then, the Great Pyramid of Giza was already a thousand years old.
RE: Fact #50 (Lunch Appeared When Dinner Moved) – My farmer relatives in the Midwest always call lunch ‘dinner’. It’s a huge, long meal where everyone comes inside to sit down and chow down for about an hour. Then they call the evening meal ‘supper’, which is usually leftovers and a bit of a grab-and-go situation while people head off to enjoy their night.
RE: Fact #23 (Chocolate Bloom Signals Storage Problems) – Another fun fact: when chocolate is poured and cooled to make a bar or chip, it’s considered a glass. If you melt it down and cool it again, the way the sugar crystals rearrange actually makes it a ceramic.
RE: Fact #8 (Nardoo Fern Can Destroy Thiamine) – As a medical professional, I have to emphasize: thiamine deficiency is serious and can lead to permanent heart or brain damage. Please don’t try to use this as a weight loss method.
RE: Fact #20 (Leftover Spaghetti Killed Belgian Student) – If you ever hit up a buffet, you’ll see staff constantly stirring the food, especially the rice. It’s a health code requirement to stop this kind of illness. Bacteria can multiply fast under the right conditions.
RE: Fact #32 (Ploughman’s Lunch Was Cheese Marketing) – So, what exactly is the official Ploughman’s? Cheese, bread, beer, and onion? Is that it?
RE: Fact #44 (Perpetual Stews Never Stopped Cooking) – Some food stalls in Thailand keep their stew pots boiling for decades. You can even see massive buildup on the outside of the cauldrons from years of spillover.
RE: Fact #11 (British Rationing Improved Wartime Health) – The best part of this fact: The only negatives were the extra time needed to eat enough bread and potatoes, a “remarkable” increase in gas from the starch, and a 250% increase in stool volume.
RE: Fact #48 (MREs Might Survive Twenty Years) – There’s actually an entire community on YouTube dedicated to people who eat and review old MREs.
RE: Fact #18 (Lucky Iron Fish Fight Anemia) – One detail I haven’t seen mentioned is that they’re producing these in Cambodia using recycled metal and employing people who might otherwise be labeled unemployable, including those with disabilities. It’s one of those developments that really hits all the right marks for me.
RE: Fact #37 (Neanderthal Plaque Revealed Diverse Diets) – I’m sticking to the Paleo diet for life. I’ll eat whatever a Paleolithic person would have, assuming it was available to them. I bet they would have loved pizza.
RE: Fact #38 (Avicenna’s Butcher Ruse Cured Delusion) – You’re usually taught to avoid feeding into delusions and to keep people grounded, though there are exceptions. It backfires a lot. I once cared for a dementia patient who insisted on checking the mail. I kept redirecting him, but that was his only focus. Finally, I just lied and said it was Sunday, so there was no mail. But then I had to deal with his Sunday routine instead. Eventually, I managed to explain that it was 8 p.m. on a Thursday and he was in the hospital, and he had a rare moment of clarity where he said, ‘I just get so mixed up these days.’ He was a great guy who loved sharing stories about his youth. Those early memories really are the ones that stick.
RE: Fact #31 (Detox Diets Lack Scientific Evidence) – They definitely “should” be discouraged by professionals. Unfortunately, the people who love “detox” diets are rarely the same people seeking advice from health professionals.
RE: Fact #9 (Low-Carb Diets Lower Male Testosterone) – They compared 27 studies with only 309 subjects total. If the average study had fewer than 12 people, doesn’t that really hurt the reliability?