Good morning...have I had the munchies for something sweet the last few days…It is just as well that I don’t keep anything like sweets or chocolate in the house…The best I could come up with was dates and have they taken a bashing… I have been dipping into them like there was no tomorrow…

Today I haven’t had that urge but I have had a new drink…  after my trip to Bangkok and the new teas I have acquired and I so love my new tea strainer…I am rather into different teas…My latest find is Yanang Juice…

Quite by chance I was talking to the nice man who owns the organic farm and he persuaded me at an exorbitant cost to buy his avocados but honestly, they are the best avocados I have had in a long time and made the best guacamole although the kids ate more than I did they love it…We have no fussy kids here they love their fresh fruit and veg…Fennel was the new one I tried on them on Sunday and they loved it…Roasted with fresh lemons and thyme it went down a treat…

Anyway…Yanang Juice…During our conversation when we discussed my non-sweet tooth as regards drinks when he tried to flog me his fresh juices…He had an aha moment and bought me this foul looking juice…I have an aversion to green juices…and this was the darkest of green…No sugar…How could I refuse him? I just didn’t have the heart…Well, I stand corrected it was pleasant to taste…Nowhere near as awful as it looked…

On doing some research as I am want to do…I just like to know these things…I found out just how healthy a drink it is…

What is Yanang Leaf?

The Yanang leaf is a powerful herb from Southeast Asia, used as both a medicine and as food for thousands of years, particularly in Northeast Thailand ( where I live) and Laos.

In Thailand, the Yanang leaf is known to restore youthful looks. They call the Yanang ‘Never get old for a thousand years.’ Thais are known to stretch their stories a little but many swear it keeps the wrinkles at bay… This leaf grows on a climbing plant. The leaves are dark green, and it has yellow flowers. It thrives in the tropics…

The scientific name of the Yanang leaf is Tiliacora Triandra, and it belongs to the family Menispermaceae.

It is also used to make soup here…I also received a cookery lesson at the same time I bought avocados and this juice…Such a lovely man…Once I find a recipe I think we will like I will share it…

Quite simply it is made from the leaves by muddling the leaves in a pestle and mortar and then adding water and squeezing and squeezing the way it has always been made before juicers were around…Then straining the liquid to get this dark green juice…

The juice is neither sweet or sour just quite a pleasant drink with numerous health benefits.

Now for a bit of fun and some weird and wacky diets over the years and there have certainly been some and some I have indeed followed…

Written by Luigi Cornaro at the age of 83 years in 1547 his first discourse( and) there were 4…was “On a temperate and Healthful Life”…Basically, although the wording is different the meaning is the same it is about eating mindfully, leave the table wanting more and eating healthy foods. I found this an interesting read and could draw many comparisons with today.

Next, we have William Banting a London undertaker with a wide girth who at his own admittance could not tie his own shoelaces…Thus he wrote ” Letters on Corpulence”

Again it echoes many sentiments people have today…

Now they start to get a bit wacky ( if) you have followed any of these please fess up and tell us we would love to hear and if you have pictures even better…

In the 1700’s it was hot sand..the aim to sweat the fat off…It didn’t stop there as I remember my mum in the ’60s having some sort of rubber clothing which was meant to miraculously make the fat disappear the reality is that yes you sweat you may lose some fat, water and salt but start eating and drinking and it goes straight back on…

Nothing has really changed over the years, has it? Back in the 1800s, we had Lord Byron another celebrity diet icon…as well as a poet…At his heaviest he was 88kg and by following what was known as the vinegar diet he slimmed down to 57kg…Existing on biscuits and soda water or potatoes drenched in vinegar he alternated between a strict diet then bingeing and taking large doses of magnesia to induce sickness…

Also rather scarily in the 1800s, there were pills laced with arsenic…

In 1894 something we all probably recognise The cornflake Diet… the plan was to eat cornflakes for breakfast and lunch and then your normal evening meal…I am guessing providing there was no bingeing some weight was lost.

Photo credit: perojonsson on Visual hunt / CC BY-NC-SA

The early 1900s saw the gross tapeworm diet…The idea is simple and gross. You take a pill containing a tapeworm egg. Once hatched, the parasite grows inside of the host, YOU…ingesting part of whatever the host eats. In theory, this enables the dieter to simultaneously lose weight and eat without worrying about calorie intake.

Both ideas fit nicely into Victorian ideals Tapeworms and pills laced with arsenic, as illustrated by The Ugly-Girl Papers by S.D Powers, one of the most popular beauty guides of the era. First and foremost, the guide states that “it is a woman’s business to be beautiful.” Beauty takes time and effort and no plain girl could forego the tediousness of beauty regimes if she wanted to find a husband. One can, therefore, conclude that Victorians were very much willing to make sacrifices to attain ideal beauty.

Early 1900 heralded the craze of chewing and spitting…Horace Fletcher was known as the great masticator…because he lost over 40 pounds through his chewing method, which was dubbed the Chewing Diet. Another fad diet.

The basic premise of the Chewing Diet includes chewing your food 32-80 times until it becomes totally liquefied and then spitting out what’s left. Through this method, you absorb fewer calories while still enjoying the taste of all the foods you love.

Photo credit: dok1 on VisualHunt.com / CC BY

The roaring 20′ s saw the cigarette diet…In fact, I am sure that many people do the same thing today…The Roaring Twenties was a decade of excess, In 1925 Lucky Strike capitalized on tobacco’s appetite suppressant qualities when they introduced the “cigarette diet” with the tag line, “Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet.”

1940 the master cleanse diet which Beyonce is a fan of…The Master Cleanse is a liquid diet. It involves drinking 6 to 12 glasses a day of a lemonade concoction containing lemon juice, maple syrup, water, and a little cayenne pepper. The total daily intake is roughly equivalent to the juice of 3 to 6 lemons per day and 3/4 to 1 1/2 cups of maple syrup per day.

1950 The good old cabbage soup diet...Lose 10lb in 7 days just eat a bowl of cabbage soup when you feel hungry…

Photo credit: neverfeltbetter on Visualhunt.com / CC BY-NC-ND

1962 the drinking mans diet steak and red wine Robert Cameron is 93 still slim and trim and following his own diet…Like my diet, there is no calorie counting and you can eat steak and whisky, chicken and gin, ham, caviar, pâté de foie gras, rum and roast pheasant, veal cutlets and vodka, frogs legs and lobster claws–they all count as zero.” His book can still be purchased on Amazon…

The early ’60s was the start of sleeping beauty. diet...It seems the idea and it is a dangerous one that you can avoid mealtimes by sleeping just pop a pill…

Again the early ’60s was also amphetamines…Or speed as we knew it and yes… me and my friends heard about this weight loss clinic… we went and were given these pills…from memory we were weighed told to take one before meals and come back next week…They made me have palpitations and everything and scared the **** out of me…I never went back…or told my mum xx

1970  the grapefruit diet...Well, it is still around…You’d better like grapefruit as well — a lot. Most versions of this diet recommend eating it with every meal.

The classic version of the diet involves:

• Cutting back on sugar and carbs (including rice, potatoes, and pasta)
• Avoiding certain foods, such as celery and white onion
• Eating more foods that are high in protein, fat, (such as eggs, pork, and red meat)
• Eating grapefruit or grapefruit juice before or with every meal

Most variations also cut calories, some to as low as 800 calories per day.

On the diet, you also drink 8 glasses of water and 1 cup of coffee daily.

1974 the cookie diet meal replacement…A cookie diet is a calorie restriction diet designed to produce weight loss, based on meal replacement in the form of a specially formulated cookie. … All require 4 to 6 cookies per day, sometimes in addition to other food, such as one meal of six ounces of meat in the case of the Siegal diet which also allows 9 cookies a day.

1981 The Beverly Hills diet is a weight loss plan based upon the idea that eating certain fruits leads to chemical reactions in the body that enhance weight loss. Quite restrictive as you are told what fruits to eat in what order and when…

The 1900’s The Hallelujah diet is also known as God’s Original Diet…A raw food diet The Hallelujah Diet consists of 85% raw and unprocessed plant-based food and 15% cooked plant-based food.

The Kimkins diet…Kimkins is a diet created by a low-carb advocate who went by the screen name of Kimmer. It is essentially a diet that’s dangerously low in calories, fat, carbs, and fibre. The eating plan is partly based on the original Atkins diet… There were lots of complaints and quite a scandal as Kimmer faked her weight loss.

2010 …The Baby Food Diet, originally an Internet phenomenon rumoured to have been started by celebrity trainer Tracy Anderson, is a gimmick for cutting calories and controlling portions. It involves replacing one or two meals or snacks a day with baby food — jars which range in calories from about 20 to 100.

2013… The cotton ball diet is a fad diet that involves consuming cotton balls dipped in liquids such as juices or smoothies. The cotton is intended to make a person’s stomach feel full without them gaining weight. The diet has been repeatedly condemned as dangerous…My comment is why? Just why?

2018 The Celery Juice Diet…made by blending and straining celery and drinking the juice every morning on an empty tummy. What is really sad and dangerous is that celebrities are endorsing it and dieticians are aware of the downsides of celery ..Yes, there are benefits but not by drinking the juice on an empty stomach and proclaiming that regardless of individuals existing health it the answer to losing weight.

2019 The Werewolf Diet...Follows a fasting regime in line with lunar cycles…again endorsed by celebrities who possibly either know nothing about it and don’t realise the pitfalls.

Photo credit: globetrotter_rodrigo on Visualhunt.com / CC BY-NC-ND

What is wrong with just eating a sensible healthy diet while moderating foods which are either processed or have empty calories. We have but one body and we should be looking after it…I mean who likes feeling sick and ill…Ok… it may be nothing to do with your eating habits and that is unavoidable and a great shame but many ailments can be eliminated or controlled by diet …

Which brings me nicely to Sally’s post…It is on a subject which even doctors do not know everything about and if it goes wrong in many cases they cannot do very much if anything but we need to look after it and give our brain the best chance of staying in good working order as we age…The brain an introduction… I found this post a really interesting read I hope you will pop over to Sally’s as I think you will too xx

Thank you for reading this post and don’t forget if you have tried any of these diets with success or failure please share in comments we would all love to know …xx

About Carol Taylor:

Enjoying life in The Land Of Smiles I am having so much fun researching, finding new, authentic recipes both Thai and International to share with you. New recipes gleaned from those who I have met on my travels or are just passing through and stopped for a while. I hope you enjoy them.

I love shopping at the local markets, finding fresh, natural ingredients, new strange fruits and vegetable ones I have never seen or cooked with. I am generally the only European person and attract much attention and I love to try what I am offered and when I smile and say Aroy or Saab as it is here in the north I am met with much smiling.

Some of my recipes may not be in line with traditional ingredients and methods of cooking but are recipes I know and have become to love and maybe if you dare to try you will too. You will always get more than just a recipe from me as I love to research and find out what other properties the ingredients I use contain to improve our health and wellbeing.

The environment is also something I am passionate about and there will be more on this on my blog this year

Exciting for me hence the title of my blog, Retired No One Told Me! I am having a wonderful ride and don’t want to get off, so if you wish to follow me on my adventures, then welcome! I hope you enjoy the ride also and if it encourages you to take a step into the unknown or untried, you know you want to…….Then, I will be happy!

More and more of my blogging friends have joined me on MeWe…A social media site which is fairly new and which promises much without the restrictions some other social media sites are choosing to impose on many of us…Join me if you will on  mewe.com/i/caroltaylor3 

Carol is a contributor to the Phuket Island Writers Anthology: https://www.amazon.com/Phuket-Island-Writers-Anthology-Stories-ebook/dp/B00RU5IYNS

Connect to Carol

Blog: https://carolcooks2.com/
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Thank you once again for reading this post I hope you all have a great week xx