The New York Times: The Times of the Sixties by John Rockwell

Author:John Rockwell [Rockwell, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers
Published: 2014-02-20T16:00:00+00:00

FOOD & DRINK

SEPTEMBER 20, 1960

LATEST RAGE FOR DIETERS: POWDERS

June Owen

Metrecal, the liquid food substitute for reducer, poured for a customer by a soda fountain clerk.

The latest rage with those who wish to lose weight is the 900-calorie powdered food formula. Get-thin-easy schemes always have been snatched up eagerly, if only temporarily, by those who need to reduce or think they do.

Today’s powdered mix has reached such peaks of popularity that some department, chain and drug stores are engaged in a price war to offer their version of the product at the lowest possible rate. The half-pound ration of the formula needed for one day now can be bought at prices ranging from 89 cents to $1.59.

Another indication of how the powdered reducing mix has swept the nation is that many drug and health food lunch counters now feature a glass of the powdered formula, mixed with water, as a substitute for a snack or a meal. Small talk at cocktail parties almost invariably turns to whether the chocolate, butterscotch or vanilla flavor of the mix is preferred.

Mead Johnson & Co., manufacturer of nutritional and pharmaceutical products, started the current craze with a product it introduced a year ago, in September 1959. Called Metrecal, it is a balanced mixture of protein, carbohydrates, minerals, vitamins and a minimum of fat.

One-half pound of the powder provides completely for the day’s requirement of nutrients. It does this with only 900 calories, a quantity that should enable the user who does not cheat to lose approximately one-half pound a day.

The powder is mixed with a quart of water. It is suggested that one glassful can be taken in place of each meal with the fourth glass sipped before going to bed.

For about six months Metrecal had the field to itself, but since then many other companies have introduced similar products under other brand names. New ones are appearing every week.

Doctors questioned about the prepared powder for reducing generally agreed that it was perfectly safe for the average person to use. Dr. Alvan R. Feinstein, a specialist in obesity and assistant professor of medicine at the New York University School of Medicine, says there are some people who genuinely do not know what they should eat or how to eat to lose weight. But they are a minority.

“Most people know very well what they should not eat,” Dr. Feinstein said. “Their problem is that they can’t avoid eating it. They may follow a perfectly good diet but, once they have lost weight, they go back to their old eating habits, gain weight and the whole cycle begins again.

“The formula diet has value if it salvaged even a few of those people who lose weight by following it, then maintain their lower weight.”

Dr. Feinstein was one of the originators of the Rockefeller Diet, a liquid formula devised at the Rockefeller Institute. Customers seized on it enthusiastically about five years ago. That diet, which Dr. Feinstein said was released to the public prematurely, was criticized for being too low in protein.

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