ISSUE 93, REFLECTIONS, Part Five: One Pill to Rule them All; Nutrition by Capsule

“One Pill to Rule Them All”  Nutrition by capsule.   

The idea of packaging medicines in a compact edible form—in a pill—dates from early antiquity, when compressed wads of bread jammed with bitter herbs became standard in the treatment of certain maladies.  The idea that one could receive one’s entire nutrition from a pill dates from the mid-19^th century.  In America the anti-materialist fringe of spiritualists and pneumatics had a queasy antipathy to eating, particularly ingesting the flesh of other animals and raw vegetables.  It the basic chemicals that made up physical life (Justus von Liebig had begun describing the chemistry of nutrition in the 1830s) could be compressed and consumed in a portable form, then one could minimize one’s involvement in the messiness of the flesh.  “Health Pills” began appearing in the 1840s—invariably derived from vegetable substances—that aspired to erase the line between dietary supplement and total nutrition.  (It wouldn’t be until William C. Rose in 1931 showed that the amino acids in protein were necessary to human nutrition, that vegetarianism realized that “any old vegetable” wouldn’t do.)

By a weird historical dialectic the idea of pill nutrition leapt from the group least preoccupied with the cultivation of the body to those most preoccupied with it—the physical culturists and body builders of the late 19^th and early 20^th century.  Within the physical culture movement there was a culture war between the naturists who insisted all healing should occur without medical intervention and that the pill was the emblem of allopathy (their pejorative term for modern pharmacological medicine), and the perfectionists who believed that all modern means to achieve the ideal body, including medical intervention (surgical calf implants were the early favorite body modification toward an ideal) and the ingestion of minerals, vitamins, and fruit sugars in pill or drink form.  The latter group took over in part because physical culture entrepreneurs found it easier to profit by selling nutrition supplements than by franchising gyms.

The liquid versus pill debate had been going on since the rise of the medicine show in the 19^th century.  When the somatic effects of your “medicine” depended upon the effects of alcohol, liquid vehicles prevailed.  When other effects were sought, the pill triumphed.  In the late 20^th century when losing weight gave rise to diet drinks (nutri-cal, etc.) and diet pills (appetite suppressants), the drinks—usually thick shakes—had an edge because they filled the stomach. 

But one cannot doubt that in the physical culture world, the pill triumphed. (Steroids are of course a logical extension of the perfectionist tradition in the movement).  One only has to go to websites for Total Nutrition or Complete Nutrition, to see the way the old “one pill to rule them all” has ramified into several pill product lines (multivitamins, protein, men’s & women’s “Lifestyles”, weight management, sleep & relaxation. 

There remains hints of the old naturist ethic in some of the modern product lines, with insistence on “natural ingredients” and vegetable-derived substances.  But just as common are detailed breakdowns of pills into their constituent chemicals, vitamins, and micronutrients.

I don’t usually think of bodybuilding Moghul Joe Weider as a paragon of moderation in a sport riven with excess, but I think his remarks on diet from 1981’s “Bodybuilding: The Weider Approach” are singularly sane in displacing pills from the center to the side of diet:

DO
1. Eat a little protein at each meal. Eat beef, fish, poultry, eggs, and milk products. Your body can digest and assimilate only 30 grams of protein per feeding, so you needn't eat huge protein meals.
2. Eat fresh fruits and vegetables, all as close to being raw as possible.
3. Eat a little vegetable fat in the form of seeds and nuts for skin and nerve health.
4. Eat a chelated multiple-mineral and multiple-vitamin supplement with each meal.
5. Eat with as much variety as possible.
6. Eat at least three meals per day. Small meals are digested and utilized more efficiently by the body.
7. Drink plenty of pure water.

DON'T
1. Eat junk foods, which are highly processed, fried, or full of sugar and white flour.
2. Eat excessive animal fats. (Trim fat from all of your meat.)
3. Drink soft drinks or alcoholic beverages.
4. Use too much salt or other seasonings.