I'm sure the dieting industry in the United States has to be a multi-billion dollar one. Pick up any newspaper or magazine out there and they will invariably have articles in them about diets. There's tons of diets available to choose from, some are hugely popular, and, because of that, even more diets seem to be springing forward. Since we Americans seem to be having a national problem with obesity, this is to be expected, I suppose. As a result of all this interest in dieting, restaurants have started taking notice, and more and more of them are offering low calorie or low carb dishes on their menus.
For me, personally, I don't get in a big uproar regarding diets. The way I see it, they come and they go, and each of them involves me having to give up something that I don't want to. If I go with a low carb diet I can't eat ice cream or Reese's Peanut Butter cups, in fact, if I go with just about any diet I can't eat ice cream or Reese's Peanut Butter cups. For that reason alone, diets bite, and that's putting it mildly. In the end they're just programs that are designed to take away the very things you love to eat, and then replace them with stuff that you don't. So, I guess if I really want to go on a diet that's guaranteed to make me lose weight then I would have to go on one that allows me to eat only the following:
Beets - These purple, vein laden monstrosities make eating a hand full of dirt seem tasty. They smell bad, taste worse, and if you get that purple color on your clothes it's really hard to get off. I would rather kiss a rat right on its heiny than eat a beet, and heiny kissing a rat is something that I never intend to do.
Original recipe fried chicken from a fast food place that we all know of - Don't get me wrong, the chicken tastes great but for some reason it makes my stomach swell up like a woman eight months pregnant with triplets. The good taste the chicken has is just not worth the inner agony that I have to deal with afterwards.
Liver - I would rather put on a pink dress and sing a medley of Linda Ronstadt hits as to be forced to eat liver. It looks vile, tastes vile, and I think that my stomach would literally invert itself if it were ever to encounter some. I wouldn't even feed it to my dog, heck, I would rather eat my dog than eat the liver.
Sushi - I have several good friends who are Japanese, and this is certainly not meant as a put down, but seaweed wrapped around some chunks of raw fish is just not my idea of a very tasty meal or snack. I had some one time several years ago and it took two days and a pound bag of M&Ms to get the taste out of my mouth afterwards.
Scrapple - If you don't already know what this is, then for God's sake don't go out and buy some in order to find out. It would be more appealing to spend an hour in close quarters with a bunch of guys who've just eaten some big helpings of baked beans than it would be to eat some Scrapple. It's a meaty, oily substance that yankees like to fry or poach or whatever else they can conjure up to do to it, but however it's prepared it's ghastly. Scrapple should stay right up north along with cold winters and any and all New Jersey politicians.
Altogether these items make up the main components of the "Williams Broomstick Diet," as I would be skinnier than one should I ever actually have to go on it. You know, when I think about dieting and all the problems associated with it, I have to wonder what's so terrible about growing old and fat? Granted, if I ever decide to be a aging, balding blob I'll probably have worse health, and I might even croak from eating all the wrong things, but at least people would understand what had happened to me. However, if staying healthy for the rest of my life means that I have to eat Scrapple, sushi, liver, or beets, well, I think that I'd rather take my chances with being a chubby and jolly old man. After all, being like that hasn't worked out too badly for Santa, now has it?

About The Author

Ed's latest book, "Rough As A Cob," can be ordered by calling River City Publishing toll-free at: 877-408-7078. He's also a popular after dinner speaker, and his column runs in a number of Southeastern publications. You can contact him via email at: ed3@ed-williams.com, or through his web site address at: www.ed-williams.com.