If you love pickles, you'll love the 1900s suicidal pickle diet craze

A new study gives hope for neurotic pickle lovers, finding that people who happen to eat more fermented foods experience less anxiety. One idea is that pickles may actually cause an anti-anxiety effect by increasing probiotics in the gut. As Grub Street notes, this means pickles might help you feel less anxious.

But don't launch into an all-pickle diet without heeding this warning: in the early 1900s, pickles were killer.

In the 1900s, the pickle diet threatened America's youth

Transcendental Graphics/Getty Images

For a while, pickles seemed like the perfect solution to early-20th-century dieters. In 1901, models lived on the pickle diet and, as a result, so did ambitious young dieters (who were usually women). That same year, numerous newspapers encouraged young women to keep using "a high pressure corset, hot baths, and pickle diet," because "never before has fat been more fatal to style and grace in dress." The new craze captured the plates of everyone from young socialites to teachers.

But once the pickle diet became popular, the media set its sights on revealing the dangers beneath the brine. As early as 1882, Washington's Evening Star reported the terrifying "symptoms" of pickle addiction:

Her tongue is as dry and hard as a piece of leather, and her physicians say that the interior of her stomach is as hard and smooth as the surface of polished glass.

In 1903, the Minneapolis Journal chided girls on a pickle diet, and New York's Evening World gave the pickle diet a cameo in a cartoon. But those were only the prelude to a far more serious threat: killer pickles.

In 1906, stories surfaced about a St. Louis woman named Anna Gross. She had reportedly embraced the pickle diet and dropped dead while drinking a glass of water. Papers across the country soberly recounted that "the inner walls of her stomach were almost completely eaten away."

Fortunately, in 1907, the Seattle Star went long on the pickle threat with extreme sensitivity:

Seattle Star/Library of Congress

Its recommendation: pursue health over the deadly pickle. "Women should know that nothing is as attractive as health," a doctor said. Otherwise, you'd end up in the sanitarium or in a suicidal mania, as one woman supposedly did in 1912. Pickles made her "a raving maniac with superhuman strength."

But don't worry — there is a better way

So what to do with the information at hand: one study today says pickles can help with your anxiety, but in the 1900s, newspapers claimed a woman died by pickle. Who can you trust?

Remember, the new study showed that fermented foods in general may help reduce anxiety. And so if you're too scared of these 1900s tales to eat pickles, one brave report from 1912 offers a noble suggestion.

East Oregonian/Library of Congress

Sauerkraut, recommended by both 1912's millionaires and a recent study. Enjoy.

Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism?

Most news outlets make their money through advertising or subscriptions. But when it comes to what we’re trying to do at Vox, there are a couple of big issues with relying on ads and subscriptions to keep the lights on:

First, advertising dollars go up and down with the economy. We often only know a few months out what our advertising revenue will be, which makes it hard to plan ahead.

Second, we’re not in the subscriptions business. Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world — not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. And we can’t do that if we have a paywall.

So even though advertising is still our biggest source of revenue, we also seek grants and reader support. (And no matter how our work is funded, we have strict guidelines on editorial independence.)

If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted high-quality information, will you make a gift to Vox today? Any amount helps.

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via