DAY 318 -- "Dumb Diets"

Looking through a Reader's Digest* I came across an article Dumbocracy which included a list of "Dumb Diets."  I had to do a double take and read it several times.  Were people really dumb enough to try these diets?  Wow.  Here's the list, and descriptions, of the "Dumb Diets":

• Sleeping Beauty Diet.  If you aren't awake, you can't eat, right?  Advocates sedate themselves and sleep for days.
• The Tapeworm Diet.  Take one orally, or, according to tapewormdiet.net, "travel to a part of the world where beef tapeworms are endemic" and infect yourself that way.
• The Cotton Ball Diet.  Begin each meal with an appetizer of cotton balls.  The balls will fill you up so that you won't want to eat as much.
• The Baby Food Diet.  Babies weigh next to nothing, so it makes sense to duplicate their diet, right? In this case, replace your meals with pureed peas, fruit, carrots, chicken, whatever.  Just make sure it comes in those little jars.
• Fletcherizing.  Horace "The Great Masticator" Fletcher preached chewing each mouthful exactly 32 times until the food was "purified" and then spitting out what remained.  This way you get the nutrients with fewer calories.

I am dumbfounded.  Do these diets really seem more appealing (to some people) than eating nutritious healthy foods?   AAAAAaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!  Stop the insanity!

*June/July 2011, p. 119.