Hay diet

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In 1905, Hay purported to have had an episode of acute heart failure following a sprint towards a train.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M69FAAAAYAAJ|title=Health Via Food|last=Hay|first=William Howard|date=1932-01-01|language=en}} As a result he discovered that he had Bright's disease (hypertension with nephritis) with a dilated heart, a condition with a poor prognosis at the time. Hay started looking for ways to improve his condition. He first turned to a vegetarian diet and restricted his eating to once a day in the evening. Then he gave up coffee and a few months later he quit smoking tobacco. After three months of the new regimen his weight had dropped from 225 lbs. to 175 lbs. and he noticed improvements in his health.{{cite book |author=William Howard Hay |title=Health via Food |orig-year=1929 |year=1932 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M69FAAAAYAAJ }} Motivated by this experience, Hay spent the following decade studying naturopathy, orthopathy and food combining in efforts to reduce as he termed it "the vast quantities of acid waste that result from wrong selection and combination of the daily foods". He claimed that fruits and vegetables produced alkaline 'end-products' when they were metabolized, while processed and refined foods resulted in acidic 'end-products' after digestion. His theories went on to encompass food-combining; stating that incorrect combinations of foods would cause even alkaline foods to leave a less desirable acidic digestion end-product.Needes, Robin, Naturopathy for Self-healing: Nutrition, Life-style, Herbs, Homoeopathy, "Acid Alkaline Balance". [https://books.google.com/books?id=tyQXPxffMWIC&dq=%22Dr.+Hay+diet%22&pg=PA29 available online]

{{quote|Any carbohydrate foods require alkaline conditions for their complete digestion, so must not be combined with acids of any kind, as sour fruits, because the acid will neutralise. Neither should these be combined with a protein of concentrated sort as these protein foods will excite too much hydrochloric acid during their stomach digestion.|author=William Hay|title=How to Always Be Well}}

The Hay System promoted eating three meals per day with meal one being what the diet considers to be alkaline foods only, meal two composed of what the diet considers to be protein foods with salads, vegetables and fruit, and meal three composed of what the diet considers to be starchy foods with salads, vegetables and sweet fruit; with an interval of 4.0 to 4.5 hours between each meal. The Hay diet was popular in the 1930s and many restaurants offered 'Hay-friendly' menus; followers of his dietary advice, included Henry Ford{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/dietsdietingcult0000gilm|url-access=registration|title=Diets and Dieting: A Cultural Encyclopedia|last1=Gilman|first1=Goldwin Smith Professor of Human Studies Sander L.|last2=Gilman|first2=Sander L.|date=2008-01-23|publisher=Routledge|isbn=9781135870683|language=en}} and Man Ray.Baldwin, Neil, Man Ray: American Artist, p. 170. [https://books.google.com/books?id=k5qvm7pOI8AC&dq=%22dr+hay+diet%22&pg=RA3-PT21 available online]. "Man Ray now wholehaartedly adopted Dr. Hay's taboos, as he had on earlier occasions..." In this period Hay was criticized in the Journal of the American Medical Society (JAMA) as a food-faddist{{Cite journal|date=1933|title=Bureau of Investigation. William Howard Hay. Capitalizing Food Fads and Fantasies.|url=http://jama.jamanetwork.com/Issue.aspx?journalid=67&issueID=6136&direction=P|journal=Journal of the American Medical Association|volume=100|issue=8|pages=595|doi=10.1001/jama.1933.02740080059028}} and separately for advocating that a patient with type 1 diabetes on the Hay diet should stop taking insulin.{{Cite journal|date=1936-01-04|title=William Howard Hay|journal=Journal of the American Medical Association|volume=106|issue=1|pages=63|doi=10.1001/jama.1936.02770010021053|issn=0002-9955}} In 1935, Stewart Baxter showed that the pancreas secretes digestion enzymes simultaneously regardless of whether the food eaten is carbohydrates or protein, contrary to one of the central propositions of the diet.Cardwell, Glenn, The Skeptic, Nutrition: Food Combining, Vol 16, No 2. [http://www.skeptics.com.au/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/theskeptic/1996/2.pdf available online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140214141401/http://www.skeptics.com.au/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/theskeptic/1996/2.pdf |date=2014-02-14 }}

Currently, the theory that carbohydrate and protein rich foods should be eaten separately is considered "unfounded" because it ignores the fact that carbohydrate rich foods contain significant amounts of protein. Eating protein separately from carbohydrates also tends to cause the body to burn the protein as an energy source rather than to build muscle.{{cite book|last=Bender|first=David A.|title=A dictionary of food and nutrition|year=2009|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford|isbn=9780199234875|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DGGtN-fH5fQC&q=hay+diet+food+combining&pg=PT135|edition=3rd}} Nevertheless, despite continual criticism over lack of a scientific basis,{{Cite web|url=http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/uniontrib/20050914/news_lz1f14focus.html|title=Logic behind call to avoid certain food combinations is faulty {{!}} The San Diego Union-Tribune|website=www.sandiegouniontribune.com|access-date=2016-07-23|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160817040610/http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/uniontrib/20050914/news_lz1f14focus.html|archive-date=2016-08-17|url-status=dead}}{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ih5qnNit-KIC&q=hay%2520diet%2520history&pg=PT110|title=Calories and Corsets: A history of dieting over two thousand years|last=Foxcroft|first=Louise|date=2012-01-05|publisher=Profile Books|isbn=978-1847654588|language=en}}{{Cite web|url=http://health.usnews.com/health-news/blogs/eat-run/2015/05/12/debunking-the-myth-of-food-combining|title=Debunking the Myth of Food Combining|access-date=2016-07-23}} the Hay diet and its variants, such as the Kensington diet {{Cite web|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/have-these-dieters-got-their-combinations-in-a-twist-1137969.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220509/https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/have-these-dieters-got-their-combinations-in-a-twist-1137969.html |archive-date=2022-05-09 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|title=Have these dieters got their combinations in a twist?|website=Independent.co.uk |date=1998-01-11|language=en-GB|access-date=2016-07-23}} and the Beverly Hills Diet, remain popular,{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ncw7AAAAQBAJ|title=The Hay Diet Made Easy: A Practical Guide to Food Combining|last=Habgood|first=Jackie|date=2011-01-02|publisher=Souvenir Press|isbn=9780285639126|language=en}} with actors such as Elizabeth Hurley, Helen Mirren and Catherine Zeta-Jones following food-combining diets.

The food-combining diet has been the subject of one peer-reviewed randomized clinical trial, which found no benefit from the diet in terms of weight loss.{{cite journal |vauthors=Golay A, Allaz A, Ybarra J, Bianchi P, Saraiva S, Mensi N, Gomis R, de Tonnac N |title=Similar weight loss with low-energy food combining or balanced diets |journal=Int. J. Obes. Relat. Metab. Disord. |volume=24 |issue=4 |pages=492–6 |year=2000 |pmid=10805507 |doi=10.1038/sj.ijo.0801185|doi-access= }}

• Food combining
• Alkaline diet
• Fit for Life
• List of diets

{{reflist}}

• Boyer, Josephine, and Katherine Cowdin (1934). Hay Dieting: Menus and Receipts for All Occasions. With a foreword by William Howard Hay. New York, New York: C. Scribner's sons.
• Hay, William Howard (1933). Health Via Food. Ed. and rev. by Rasmus Alsaker, with a special introduction by Oliver Cabana, Jr. First printing, June, 1929; Tenth printing, February, 1933. East Aurora, New York, Sun-Diet Health Foundation.
• Hay, William Howard (1935). Weight Control. New York: Hay System.

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Category:Diets

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