Resources
BOOKS
Buesseler, Cathryn Anne Hansen.Scandinavian and German
Family Cookery.Madison, WI: Goblin Fern Press,
2005.
Ojakangas, Beatrice.Scandinavian Cooking.Minneapolis,
MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2003.
Shannon, Joyce Brennfleck ed.Diet and Nutrition Source-
book.Detroit, MI: Omnigraphics, 2006.
Willis, Alicia P. ed.Diet Therapy Research Trends.New
York: Nova Science, 2007.
ORGANIZATIONS
American Dietetic Association. 120 South Riverside Plaza,
Suite 2000, Chicago, Illinois 60606-6995. Telephone:
(800) 877-1600. Website:<http://www.eatright.org>
OTHER
‘‘Scandinavian Cuisine–A Communion with Nature’’All
Scandinavia2002.<http://www.allscandinavia.com/
scandinaviancuisine.htm>(April 17, 2007).Helen M. DavidsonScarsdale diet
Definition
The Scarsdale diet is a rapid weight loss regimen
classified as a very low-calorie diet, or VLCD. It is also
one of the oldest low-carbohydrate diets still followed
by some dieters. Although the first edition ofThe
Complete Scarsdale Medical Dietwas published in
1978, over a quarter-century ago, the book is still in
print as of early 2007. It is reported to be particularly
popular in France in the early 2000s.Origins
The Scarsdale diet began as a two-page typewrit-
ten office handout drawn up in the 1950s by Dr. Her-
man Tarnower, a cardiologist who had built a medical
center in Scarsdale, a middle- to upper middle-class
community in Westchester County, New York. Tar-
nower had written the short reducing guide for
patients who needed to lose weight for the sake of
their hearts; he was not a professional nutritionist or
dietitian. The two articles that he published in medical
journals have to do with fever as a symptom of a heart
attack and with management of congestive heart fail-
ure. His primary motive in writing down his diet plan
was impatience; he disliked having to spend time
explaining nutrition or other health issues to his
patients and so chose to make up a weight-reductionhandout. Tarnower gave an interview shortly before
his death to the journalBehavioral Medicine, in which
he stated, ‘‘If you don’t have a routine written out that
you can give to patients with common disorders, it will
destroy you. You try to go over all the instructions
with each patient, but no physician has that much
patience.’’
Tarnower’s patients often copied the diet for their
friends, who in turn sent photocopies to other friends.
At some point in the mid-1970s, following the early
success of theAtkins diet, one of Tarnower’s friends,
Oscar Dystel, suggested that he expand his office
handout into a full-length book. Tarnower hired a
writer, Samm Sinclair Baker, who had published
other books in the field of nutrition, and the first
edition ofThe Complete Scarsdale Medical Dietwas
printed in 1978. It became an immediate bestseller,
going through 21 printings in its first ten months in
hardcover format. Tarnower’s book became the
choice of four book clubs; it sold the second-highest
number of copies (over 642,000) of hardcover books
published in 1979, outdone only by a humorous book
by Erma Bombeck. According to Time magazine,
Tarnower’s diet book grossed more than $11 million
by the spring of 1980. Sinclair Baker’s most important
contribution to the book was to suggest four new
programs that represented variations on the basic
diet: the Scarsdale Diet for Epicurean Tastes, the
Scarsdale International Diet, the Scarsdale Vegetarian
Diet, and the Scarsdale Money-Saver Diet. These will
be described more fully below.
Tarnower’s book received an initial surge in sales
when it was featured in such prestigious fashion mag-
azines asVogue, which ran an article on ‘‘the Scarsdale-
diet rage’’ in 1979. It received an even bigger boost
when Dr. Tarnower was shot and killed in March
1980 by Jean Harris, a long-term lover who was then
the headmistress of a prestigious private school for girls
in Virginia. The made-for-media aspects of the murder
and the trial that followed guaranteed that the diet
book would receive its share of attention from the
press and the public.DescriptionThe Scarsdale diet can be summarized as a very
low-calorie low-carbohydrate diet with a slightly differ-
ent ratio ofcarbohydrates, proteins, andfats.Anadult
woman who follows the diet exactly will consume
between 650 and 1000 calories per day. The nutrient
ratio, which is unusual for a low-carbohydrate diet, is
43%protein, 22.5% fat, and 34.5% carbohydrate.Scarsdale diet