Disappearing spoon: Chewing it Over—and Over and Over and Over

Distillations | Science History Institute

If Ted Talks were around in the early 1990s, Horace Fletcher would have given his fair share of them. Fletcher was a health reformer who thought people didn’t chew their food nearly enough. He believed that most swallowed food way too quickly. This had all sorts of detrimental health consequences, he said, including nasty bowel movements.​​ So he over-chewed his food. He once chewed a green onion 722 times before he let himself swallow it. His idea became such a sensation that it became a movement known as "Fletcherism." His ideas made it to the White House and could have even changed the tide of World War I.

Credits

Host: Sam Kean Senior Producer: Mariel Carr Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez Audio Engineer: Jonathan Pfeffer

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Photo: Science History Institute.