Some diets may still seem ridiculous to you—like the Cookie Diet will never really sit well with me—but if you look at the history of fad diets over the last hundred or so years, you’ll see that while lots of silly fads have come and gone, we’ve actually come a long way.
Did you know that cigarettes used to be marketed as diet tools? Lucky Strike, the fashion cigarette of the 20s and 30s, had a slogan, “Reach for a Lucky Instead of a Sweet.” Can you imagine something like that flying today, in our organic and health-conscious society? I think not.
Also, you may think that diets like the Lemonade Diet (aka The Master Cleanse) are trendy diets of the 21st century—I mean, if Beyonce isn’t on the cutting edge of modern times than who is?—but it actually dates all the way back to 1976; and the Cookie Diet from 1975.
Are these truly “fad” diets if they’ve stuck around for more than 30 years? Or can these diets finally break out of the “fad” phase and become valid and successful standard diet options? I mean, look at the Atkins Diet—what was once a fad diet in 1972 has now changed the face of dieting forever with its introduction of the Low Carb Revolution.
We used to count calories, then cut fat, then eliminate carbs, only drink liquids, only have fruit in the morning, only eat cabbage soup, never eat red meat, breathe more, chew more, only use a small fork (the Mini Fork system), magnify your food so it looks bigger, hypnosis, diet pills that cut fat, diet pills that curb your appetite, juice fasts, detox diets, and fasting—with so many fad diets out there, how are we ever supposed to keep all the rules straight?
