In my humble opinion the world doesn’t have enough fad diets. So let’s make our own. The idea is to base a diet on a completely ridiculous notion, but then see how we can have some fun with it and come up with a diet that is actually half decent.
I’ve been thinking for a while that the a diet where you eat a different color food every day would be an excellent basis for a fad diet. (There are some diets called “rainbow diet” which may or may not be this.)
Basing the colors on the rainbow is probably too restricting because the rainbow doesn’t include black, white, gray, beige, brown, purple, pink, some of which are common colors for foods. There’s also the problem that some foods have a color in their name or are associated with a color but aren’t actually that color. For instance, blackberries aren’t very black, red grapes and red cabbage aren’t very red. And of course many foods have one color on the outside and another on the inside, like kiwi fruit that have a brown skin but green flesh.
Let’s give it a spin.
Blue/purple day:
(many blue foods are actually purple inside and there’s not enough truly blue ones to only eat those, AFAIK.)
egg plant
blackberries
blueberries
red cabbage
fish with blue skin
red onions
Red day:
beets
beef
tomatoes
red peppers and bell peppers
Orange day:
oranges/mandarins
food that is both red and yellow at the same time is ok, such as apples and peaches/nectarines
Yellow day:
corn
bananas
lemmons
Green day:
lettuce
cabbage
kale
spinach
limes
cucumbers
green peppers and bell peppers
Monochrome day:
(only black/white/gray foods)
white bread with no crust
white rice
yoghurt
mushrooms
whipped cream
white meat (chicken/pork)
witloof / Belgian endive
white fish
Brown day:
chocolate
kiwi fruit
almonds
brown rice
wholewheat bread
Beige day:
chicken nuggets (!)
pasta
cashews
So what do you think? Could this work? Please add additional foods if you think of any.
Bacon. It’s red and white and turns brown when you cook it. Plus, you have to have some fat in a diet. And they don’t say “salt of the earth” for nothin’.
The Serious Disease Diet. Everyone loses weight when they’re* really* sick. Handle raw chicken then make a salad without washing. Leave food out overnight. You’ll be svelte in no time.
If you’re really lucky, you’ll wind up in the hospital and they’ll control portions, calories, everything.
You may even wind up with a feeding tube or IV.
drink all the kool-aid you want (red colored only)
Eat all the spoiled food you want. When you cannot afford to see the doctor because the politicians you voted for rejected Obamacare then you lose lots of weight.
I like **iljitsch’s **idea, but we should call it The Color Wheel Diet. Then we could make it more complicated by having Primary Color days (red, blue, yellow), Secondary Color days (purple, green, orange), and Neutrals Day (black, white, gray, brown). That way, people would have to learn some color theory along with dieting. Might help them make better clothing choices in the future.
Some foods, of course, will be eaten only on specific days: most lettuces, parsely, cilantro, celery, artichokes would only be consumed on a Secondary Color day. Meat (like bacon) could be either a Primary Color day (red) or a Neutral Color day food (brown when cooked). Avocados could be a Secondary Color day food (green on the inside) or a Neutral Day food (blackish on the oustide, when ripe). Milk, whether regular or chocolate, can only be consumed on a Neutral Day.
What do we do about spices? No salt except on a Neutral Color day? If that’s the case, I am so outta here!
No, no, no, people. You are doing it all wrong. If we are going to create a successful fad diet (defined as one that will make me money), we need to follow the lead of companies selling “low” fat/carb/gluten/etc. foodstuffs. I think I’ve got it:
In “the lose weight while sick” theme, a friend of mine has Crohn’s disease and can’t eat fiber at all. He pretty much only eats highly processed foods and is quite thin. I suspect it’s because his body can’t really absorb calories like a normal person.
For a real SDMB diet, we’d be able to reduce the amount of food we eat because we’re so busy correcting each other we have no time to eat. Or we’d need to make the log-in require 10 minutes of exercise, like those train stations in Russia that give tickets for squats.
The Alphabet Diet. On the first day, you’re allowed to consume as much as you but you can only consume things that start with the letter A. On the second day, only B. And so on through the twenty-sixth day, when you can only eat or drink things that start with the letter Z. Then you start the cycle over again.
I think the food restrictions should be correlated directly with clothing restrictions. You would go to a stylist/nutritionist and “get your colors done.” Then you could only wear clothes AND eat foods in that color group. Conveniently, anything you spill on yourself will match your outfit.
And nobody could eat white foods after Labor Day.