The counterculture diets of the 19th century, like those of the
previous century, tended to appeal to wealthy, overweight, middle-
and upper-class women, who mostly wanted to eat a simple diet as a
way to lose weight and become spiritually purifi ed. That’s actually
true of most food ideologies: They promise that if you eat a certain
way, you will be healthy, moral, politically correct, a better person.
They’re a lot like religions in that way; they require a conversion
and complete commitment. The 18th-century weight-loss, spiritual-renewal diets have a direct
impact on the 19th-century health-food movements because they see
industrial society not only as unhealthy, but also as morally corrupt.
Another thing often connected with these is temperance. Alcohol
became very inexpensive and, therefore, became the preferred drink
among many poor people. Food reformers often mixed teetotaling
with a simpler, more natural diet with spiritual revivalism.The Romantic Movement
The roots of the Romantic movement, which began with a
philosopher by the name of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, are in the 18th
century as well. Among all of his contemporaries, including French
and English philosophers, there was an intense faith in progress—
one of scientifi c advancement and economic improvement.
Rousseau can be indirectly credited with devising an entirely new
attitude toward food that had long-lasting consequences up to the
present. Rousseau’s brand of nature worship inverted the traditional
value placed on manmade and improved products of nature, giving
a negative spin on the term “artifi cial.” Indirectly, Rousseau spawned what we now know as the health-food
movement. Simpler, unprocessed, unrefi ned foods were considered
preferable. Rousseau thought that most people ate deplorable
things, including sugar, pastries, and junk food. Rousseau also has a
decided leaning toward vegetable foods, believing that eating meat
makes humans more cruel and ferocious. Rousseau’s ideas were
especially infl uential on Romantics of the 19th century.