1910s: the megabite diet

Men's Fitness, March, 2003

Horace Fletcher, a San Francisco art dealer, became known as "the Great Masticator" for advocating chewing each bite at least 32 times and turning solid food into liquid gruel. Novelist Henry James became an enthusiast, and a Yale professor conducted tests and concluded that "Fletcherizing" provided subjects with 50 percent greater overall muscular endurance and cured them of the desire to abuse alcohol.

If only it were that easy. Certainly chewing is essential for proper digestion and nutrient absorption, but Fletcherizing falls under the obsessive-behavior category.