Taco Bell is running an advertising campaign that features a woman who claims to have lost 54-pounds by eating the fast food chain’s reduced-fat “Fresco” items (The Taco Bell Diet). The caloric content of the seven items on Taco Bell’s Fresco menu run between 150-340 calories each. Making any claims that Taco Bell foods should in any way, shape or form be part of a weight loss diet is idiotic, however, not any more idiotic than the claims made by a bevy of current fad, easy-eating diets.
The Cookie Diet, Quick Trim, The Smoothie Diet and The Cheater’s Diet all have one thing in common; stupidity. And disclaimers.
That’s two things, stupidity and disclaimers. And calorie counting. That’s three things, stupidity, disclaimers and calorie counting. And calorie restriction. That’s four things, but I’m sure you realize that by now.
It’s amazing that the purveyors of this nonsense get away with foisting garbage upon the dieting public, but they do because for the past 25+ years people have been subjected to an endless barrage of faulty fad diets. People have lost their way and lost their common sense when it comes to what they should be eating.
I wish I had a dime for every time someone has said to me, “I don’t know what to eat,” “What can I eat?” “Tell me what to eat,” or some variation of these statements. T he diet and guru industry has created an entire class of people who have lost the ability to feed themselves. Which is why we have absurdities like The Smoothie Diet, The Cookie Diet – and the Taco Bell Diet.
So if you hear any criticism leveled at the latest Taco Bell advertising campaign – and I’m sure you will – keep in mind that the fast food restaurant has a lot of company in the dumb diet department.
You wrote: “People have lost their way and lost their common sense when it comes to what they should be eating.” It’s true, isn’t it? Fast food, junk food, has taken a toll on us in many ways; our health, our social time with family and friends, our finances, and more. We have forgotten how to eat, and how to cook. We seem to have forgotten how to buy good plain food and how to put the ingredients together into a nutritious meal at home.