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The Low Carbohydrate Diet - edited by Evelyn L. Fibre (1965)

Celeriac

Well-Known Member
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1,065
Type of diabetes
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Kindle changed Fiore to Fibre sorry !

First published in 1965, by Ridge Press, my second-hand paperback published by Michael Joseph is the 7th impression, August 1974 so quite a few copies must have been sold.

Although titled ' The Low Carbohydrate Diet', the cover says ' usually called The Air Force Diet '. What this means, I don't yet know.

Chapter 1 starts by explaining that this is basically a diet which went viral, around advertising, publishing, finance and fashion businesses and ended up in 'Vogue'. It became popular because dieters weren't required to give up alcohol or butter.

Chapter 2 goes back in low carb history, talking about Banting, Steffanson, Donaldson, Pennington and Gehrmann.

Chapter 3 explains how the diet works and why in simple layman's terms.

Chapter 4 explains how dieters benefit from the diet and you get the first indication of the forbidden foods -

Cakes, cupcakes, pies, puddings, all other desserts made with sugar and/or thickener e.g. flour, constancy.
All canned or stewed fruits cooked with sugar or syrup.
All cereals and cereal products.
All jams, jellies, candies, syrups, honey, sugar.
All rice and pasta.
All dried fruits
All biscuits and extra bread
Lima beans, corn, peas, okra, potatoes.
Apples, apricots, bananas, orange juice, peaches, pears, plums, pineapple, watermelon.
All berries except strawberries.
All sweet and carbonated drinks.
All beer and sweet wine.

The Diet allows 60g carbs a day but warns that if you stop losing weight you may have to go as low as 20g. As the diet isn't aimed specifically at people with diabetes, dieters can jiggle some foods i.e. having 1 slice of bread at breakfast

There is a table of food values in common portions both alphabetically and by category, plus tables for carbohydrate content of common snacks, beverages and alcoholic beverages. A table lists the desirable weights for adults.

There are quite a few carb counted meal ideas for breakfast, lunch and dinner, all under 60g carbs per day.

The weight loss benefits are said to be up to 5lbs in first week and up to 14lbs in first month.

The last section has recipes e.g. baked eggs with anchovy, chicken with curry cream, stuffed chillies with cheese and Mexican sauce, lemon veal with olives, hamburgers ( no buns) with Bordelaise sauce, lamb shanks Brazil (uses coffee), mock boar, lamb with radish sauce, eggs in aspic, Parma veal, roast duckling with giblet sauce, garlic chicken, stuffed chicken breasts, Kiev style, green beans with brown butter garlic sauce, Turkish eggplant, veal kidneys with mustard sauce. Seems like a diet for those not on a budget, therefore.

I shall definitely try the lamb shank and the green bean recipes.

For a paperback only 94 pages long, it does pack a lot in. It also gives carb counts for real food and drink like apple pie, muffins, various breads, Manhattan, G&T, white sauce - basically things which people might have encountered when eating out at the time.

I would recommend it, if you find a cheap copy floating about in a boot fair, charity shop, second-hand book store etc because it gives you a bit of everything - low carb history, diet rules, eating out tips, tables of food, menu ideas and some recipes.
 
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That sounds interesting @Celeriac Will definitely look out for it.

In the meantime, though, I stumbled across The Atkins Diet website when I was looking for a recipe. You've probably seen it (I'm always the last to know about these things) but I was quite impressed with the variety of recipes on there. I never thought to look it up before because I assumed it would just point you towards buying their books but it was all free.

Here's the link if you or anyone else is interested and hasn't already seen it.

http://www.atkins.com/recipes
 
Thanks for that !

I did have some Atkins books from a charity shop and once I had cut out a few recipes, I recycled them. Now when I buy books, if I find them useful or they are old, I keep them whole, if there are just a few recipes, I copy them and donate the book to a charity shop.

I might have some of them, but I'm sure there will be some I don't have and will be able to pin to Pinterest.
 
Tried lamb shanks Brazil using wild venison shank, also green beans with garlic brown butter sauce, both excellent.
 
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