Vintage Food Advertisements: Part Twenty-one

[ea56]

Diet Pills

Is how people did it in those days. I was a fat little kid from age 7 to 17 because of being bedridden for 6 mo. at age 6 with Rheumatic Fever and my physical activity severely restricted for several years after recovery.

By age 8 I was put on a 600 calorie a day diet and diet pills 3 times a day. Then along came Metralcal, which was the precursor of the Borden’s Ready Diet in reply # 79 above. It was nasty! It gave me headaches, which my Mom told me was all in my head. Yeah, it was, a GD pain in my head!.. I don’t blame my parents for the terrible diet’s they put me on. It was what doctors recommended then for obese children.

After decades of fighting my weight, Yo-Yoing up and down I finally managed to gain control over my weight. I’m about 10-15 lbs higher than ideal, but my weight is stable and has been for 10 years. I exercise daily, eat a balanced diet of foods that I like with no restrictions and never eat between meals.

In the end its sensible eating, regular exercise and the realization that perfection is the enemy of the good that won the battle for me. Everyone’s journey is different.

Eddie[this post was last edited: 1/12/2024-13:05]

 

[whitewhiskers]

Metrecal Diet Drink Ads 1960's

guaranteed to leave you hungry!

 

[ea56]

Gary,
Metrecal also made some “cookies” that tasted like “Milkbones” for dogs. They were hideous. When Metrecal first came out it was only in powder form, like “Slim Fast” used to be sold, in chocolate and butterscotch flavors only. When the canned formula came out it was an improvement, but not by much. If I’m not mistaken Metrecal was only sold in pharmacy’s in the beginning, then it became mainstreamed into grocery stores. Metrecal is one of my worst memories from childhood.

Eddie[this post was last edited: 1/13/2024-15:45]

 

[whitewhiskers]

re: worst memories from childhood

My worst childhood memory was my mother applying Vicks VapoRub on my chest at night. I hate that stuff, seems like she was trying to suffocate me. My father had it worse, his mother would put on his chest something called a mustard plaster. Then when he went to elementary school the teacher would tie his left arm behind his back, forcing him to write with his right hand. Back then (1930's) being left-handed was seen as a disease that needed to be cured.

 

[ea56]

Gary,
I never had a mustard plaster, but I can remember seeing the directions for giving a mustard plaster on the Coleman’s Dry Mustard can years ago. You were supposed to make a paste of mustard powder and warm water and place cheese cloth over the chest and smear the mustard paste onto the cheese cloth. The mustard got really hot and the cheese cloth held the paste over the area of treatment.

Mom used to put Vicks Vapo Rub on us kids too, but I don’t remember it being that unpleasant. I also recall in the 50’s when I first started school that being left handed was discouraged by some parents. I and all my siblings are right handed so this was never an issue for us. Plus my Mom talked about how cruel she thought that practice of forcing kids to be right handed was, she said that she knew kids when she was in school that were forced to be right handed and she thought that this was wrong. Things sure were different back in the old days weren’t they.

Eddie

 

[DADoES]

 
Mom did the Vapo Rub on occasion, it helped.

The nuns slapped granny with a stick for left-hand writing, forced her to use the right.  She was left-handed for everything else.

 

[jamiel]

Metrecal and others were a craze in the very early 60s. You can tell that it was advertised for both men and women, which is wild. The earliest ads were all-text, as Mead Johnson was an "ethical" baby formula company (same as an "ethical" pharmaceutical company--in the day they advertised only to doctors). This expanded their market, and soon was joined by more of the "dairy" lobby---Borden, Pet (Sego) and Carnation (Slender) which essentially could double-up dairy sales (these products were essentially double strength/evaporated skim milk with flavorings, vitamins and a little bit of oil). Consumers Reports did an expose--you could make your own concoction with fluid milk, dry milk, sweetener, oil and a vitamin pill.

 

[wayupnorth]

I remembered their tv ad, "Join the Metrecal for lunch bunch".

 

[ea56]

Metrecal

Came out in October 1959, and I was one of the first unfortunate individuals to be subjected to this dietary product. The liquid diet craze lasted well into the 60’s and into the early 70’s.

Eddie

 

[whitewhiskers]

Stop Eating with Shape and AYDS - 1970, 1978

 

[whitewhiskers]

Skinny? Ask for Amazing Wate-On

 

[appnut]

And of course we know the Aids crisis caused the elimination of the Ayds diet supplement.

 

[ea56]

Ayds

In May of 1968 I saw an ad in the Sunday newspaper about a man that had lost a great deal of weight using Ayds. I remarked about it to my Mom. I was 17 at the time and weighed 208 lbs and I was 5’7”. When Mom went to the grocery store that week she brought home a box of Ayds for me and told me that if I wanted to I could give them a try. BTW, the caramel flavor was my favorite Ayds.

Well that was enough to get me started. I followed the diet plan included in the box, and found that using Ayds did seem to help suppress my appetite. It may have helped that I was smoking a pack of Lucky Strikes every day too. Well right away I began to drop weight and started to feel better about myself. I took long bike rides and walks and exercised daily. Over the Summer I went from 208 lbs to 143 lbs. by the time school started in the Fall for my senior year. I was wearing a 32 in waist pants and a size small shirt, down from a skin tight 38” waist and large to ex large shirt. When I got on the school bus the first day of school the other kids asked my brother, “Joe, isn’t Eddie going to school this year?”, I’d changed so much that kids I’s known since the 8th grade didn’t even recognize me. It was the first time since I was 6 years old that I actually felt good about myself. By the time I graduated I weighed 130 lbs and had to buy the Navy Blue Blazer that I wore to my graduation in the boys dept, a boys size 20. My PE teacher was thunder struck when he saw me in September. I went from being the last kid to finish the 440 run in track to the second fastest in the class and I could actually run and jump the hurdles, something I never thought I could do.

In all honesty I believe that it was my mind set that changed more than anything else, but Ayds did help give me a great kick start. For the next 3-4 years I managed to keep my weight under pretty good control. But as time went on, old bad habits returned and I was up and down sometimes as much as 80 lbs. I went to Weight Watchers and attained Lifetime status after reaching my goal weight. As you can tell weight management has been a lifelong struggle for me and I learned a lot along the way.

Ten years ago I finally was able to get a good handle on the situation. What all of my struggle taught me is that in the end moderation, a sensible diet, not eating between meals or binge eating, regular exercise and realistic goals and expectations are what at last let me attain a stable, healthy weight and maintain it. And it was Ayds that started me on this self improvement journey.

Eddie

[this post was last edited: 1/16/2024-18:47]

 

[yuccadew]

[No message]

 

[yuccadew]

I remember buying the Alba77 diet shakes as a teenager in the 80s. It was all about the calories.

 

[whitewhiskers]

Spry Pure Vegetable Shortening with Cake-Improver 1948

Valentine's Day February 14 is less than a month away, consider this wonderful recipe. The James Lileks book "The Gallery of Regrettable Food" has a whole section on Spry with Aunt Jenny.

 

[Ultramatic]

Campbell's 1933

 

 

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[Ultramatic]

Betty Crocker 1957

 

 

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[Ultramatic]

A.1. 1956

 

 

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[Ultramatic]

Uncle Ben's 1987

 

 

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