[PREVIEW] Is It A Diet? Or a Homeschool Curriculum?

You may end up quitting your job and leaving your partner and ditching all your friends, but don’t worry! It’s gonna be a good thing because you’re eating a lot of banana green smoothies.

Welcome to Burnt Toast! It’s time for your April bonus episode.

We’re gonna do what we did last month, where I asked you for the diet trends that are showing up the most in your life. I’m going to look them up on the internet, tell you what I think, and we’re gonna chat about it. Here we go!

Episode 38 Transcript

One quick note: This episode does include some explicit discussion of diet techniques. I am not going to link to any of the programs we discuss today because these are not companies that need your clicks. Corinne and I debated and decided that we would screenshot things because it may be helpful (or just more entertaining) to see what I see while you listen/read the transcript. But if seeing lots of diet marketing or hearing lots about how diets work is not safe for you, this is def one to skip!

Whole30

We’re starting with Whole30, which I feel like is one of the OG diets. Whole30 is one of the last diets I dabbled with back before I stopped dieting in 2014 or so. It was really big then, I felt like everybody I knew was doing it. I thought it had sort of petered out or been replaced by Paleo, but I guess it was gone from my heart, but not from our lives. So I really appreciate the one person who wrote in and said, “Can you do Whole30? I know the answer is yes to the question ‘Is it a diet?’ but I just need the reminder.”

So, dear listener, let’s look up Whole30 and I will remind you!

Okay, the first thing I’m going to say is their website is ugly. It’s a real bad design. I’m just on Whole30.com. (Whole30 is one of those that has spun off into a million different places. Whenever possible, I’m trying to go to primary sources. That’s really fundamental to good journalism, which is obviously what we’re doing here.)

So I’m looking at Whole30.com and the layout looks very 2014. The graphics and the colors and the fonts… It’s very Arial font, kind of stark looking in a way that doesn’t look chic anymore. I don’t think Gwyneth Paltrow would approve. It is founded by a woman—that comes up a lot when I talk about the thin, white men of diet culture. People are always like what about Melissa Hartwig? So, yes, of course there are women in diet culture and she is one of them. It’s founded by a woman, but it’s not just a diet for girls in the same way that some are. It tries to be a little more gender neutral, so I feel like I’m seeing that with the design.

Since April 2009! This diet has been around a really long time. Okay, so program rules. “Yes: Eat Real food.” Don’t you love that? Because it sounds like that’s all you have to do—just eat real food. There’s so much real food. Okay, let’s see what they mean by real food. “Meat, seafood, and eggs, vegetables and fruit, natural fats, and herbs, spices and seasonings. Eat foods with a simple or recognizable list of ingredients or no ingredients at all because they’re whole and unprocessed.”

I mean…whole and unprocessed foods still have ingredients, even if the ingredient is “tomato.” But okay, no ingredients at all! That’s our goal. 

“No: Avoid for 30 days. Do not consume added sugar, real or artificial. This includes maple syrup, honey, agave nectar, monkfruit extract.” What was the diet we talked about last month? Sakara let you have monk fruit extract. Nope, not on Whole30. Not gonna fly. No xylitol either.

“Do not consume alcohol in any form, not even for cooking.” Oh, this is interesting: “and ideally no tobacco products of any sort either.” I like that they give that. Like, look, we know we’re making you give up most major food groups so you can keep smoking.

“Do not eat grains.” Yeah, this is the Whole30 Magic.

“Includes but not limited to wheat, rye, barley, oats, corn, rice, millet, bulgur, sorghum, sprouted grains and all gluten-free pseudo-cereals.” That’s a little judge-y!

“Like quinoa, amaranth and buckwheat. This also includes all the ways we add wheat, corn, and rice into our foods in the form of bran, germ starch and so on. Read your labels!” 

I’m already exhausted. I mean to the person wondering if this is a diet: Obviously, this is a diet. They just took out all grains! No wonder you’re smoking because you have no joy in your life because they took away bread! I mean, yeah, this is definitely a diet and we’re not even done. You also can’t eat most forms of legumes, all forms of soy. How am I supposed to eat sushi? Which I’m allowed. Well, I’m not allowed sushi, I guess because I’m not allowed rice, but I’m allowed sashimi, because I’m allowed fish. But no soy sauce. Yeah, that’s not gonna work. 

“Do not eat dairy. Do not consume carageenan or sulfites. Do not re-create or purchase baked goods, ‘food with no brakes’ or treats with Whole30 compatible ingredients.”

Oh, they’re saying, don’t think that you can make a Whole30-compatible donut because we told you you can’t have donuts.

“Re-creating or buying treats, sweets, and food with no brakes, even if the ingredients are technically compatible, means you’ll come out of the program with the same exact habits, coping strategies, and food choices you had when you started. And that won’t lead to the kind of long term, life changing results we want for you.” 

So, it’s a diet and it’s a cult! Because this is the rhetoric where we’ve made it so difficult for you to succeed and we’re making it clear that like, there’s so many footnotes, there’s so many caveats, there’s so many ways you can get this wrong. But we’re just giving you all these rules because we want life changing results for you. We want what’s best for you. Do you not want what’s best for you? Is that why you’re smoking and making Whole30 compatible donuts? So much judgment!

Oh, this is interesting. The final rule is do not step on the scale or take any body measurements for 30 days. “The Whole30 is about so much more than weight loss and to focus only on body composition means you’ll overlook all the other dramatic lifelong benefits this plan has to offer. So no weighing yourself, analyzing body fat, or breaking out the tape measure during the 30 day elimination period.”

You may take photos and or measurements on day zero and 31, however. It’s a diet. It’s a diet, it’s a diet. Just because they told you not to weigh yourself for a month, they still want to know how your weight changes in that month—so definitely a diet.

Oh, there’s some fine print: You are allowed green beans and most peas. You are allowed most vinegars and botanical extracts. So what are you complaining about? You can have vanilla and lemon extract in your life.

What I remember about folks doing Whole30 back when this was such a super trendy diet, was that they would quickly buy in to the idea that it was not a diet. They would focus on all those things you’re allowed to have—the seafood and the vinegar, I guess—and then they would be surprised at how dramatically their body rebelled against the plan and how miserable they felt.  But the Whole30 community is so prepared for that. And so in the support groups or the online chats, people talk about how that is a sign the diet is working. And your body is like shedding whatever it needs to, you know, like detox and cleanse and what have you. Instead of saying, “Oh wait, you were fucking hungry, your body would like a sandwich. Please feed yourself.”

Yeah, so that’s, to me, the biggest red flag about Whole30, is they have you cut out a ton of food groups. And they’re not talking honestly about the consequences of that. In fact, they’re trying to convince you that how miserable you feel is a good thing and that soon you’ll start to feel magically better and that is just eating disorder 101. So that’s Whole30. But at least you can smoke on it!

Trim Healthy Mama

Okay, next on the list. This one is new to me. I already hate it. The name of this one is Trim Healthy Mama. Blech, throwing up a lot while I look at this.

Another pretty janky website design! Have websites just gotten bad? There’s a butterfly in the logo, very millennial. I’m thinking of all my friends who got the lower back butterfly tattoo in the early 2000’s late ‘90s. I’m feeling like these are my people and this is who this brand is speaking to. Notice “trim and healthy” are in a nice serif font and then the “mama” is in a quirky script. I guess that’s so you know you’re not a normal mom, you’re a fun mom. You’re a cool mom. You’re a mama. 

Let’s read about trim healthy mama! “For women of all ages and stages! Trim down while embracing all food groups. No missing out on carbs, fats, or protein. Include them for health, enjoy them for sanity. Family-friendly way of eating, founded by two sisters and busy mothers who were determined to ditch restrictive diet fads and embrace food freedom.”

Okay, they are leaning hard into “it’s not a diet.” But we know it’s a diet because the mission is to trim down and you can’t do that without dieting.

And you can become a trim healthy mama lifestyle coach! Oh, it’s MLM and there’s a homeschool nutritional curriculum! I think this is a trad wife thing, you guys. This is interesting.

Here is the “Trim healthy You” nutrition workbook for…third to fifth grade. I have to take some deep breaths. That textbook is called “the caterpillar.” And then the sixth to eighth graders are “the chrysalis.” So I’m guessing in high school you become a butterfly?, it comes with laminated recipe cards and exercise cards and a workbook. UGHHHH, okay. “Click here to check out the curriculum.” We’re off the diet thing, now I’m in home school hell, but let’s find out.

“Help your kids feel like superheroes.” Oh no. Oh no. “Trim healthy you is a health and nutrition curriculum created by trim healthy mama to teach children and teens the skills they need to become the healthiest they can be now and for the rest of our lives.” No pressure! “The cry for help rings stronger every year as this new generation faces an unprecedented epidemic of health and weight issues.”

Okay, so: “In third grade, you learn about the three macronutrients required for healthy living: protein, fat, and carbohydrates. You learn how to keep a stable blood sugar.” I don’t think that’s a skill you need to learn in third grade! I just want to be really clear, unless you have diabetes and have to manage your insulin. No.

At the intermediate level, the six through eighth graders. Let’s see: “Using sound grounded health wisdom that ignites natural curiosity. It imparts scientific information, biblical references, and practical how to’s in a fun and approachable way.” I am so glad somebody sent me down this rabbit hole. Science and the Bible teaching you to diet! Wow! Okay!

And then yes, the butterfly book is for the high schoolers. I’m assuming it’s more Bible talk and more science. Yep. Yep. That’s great. Yeah, this isn’t at all terrifying. Nope, not creepy that they’re calling the workbook “an answer to a prayer.”

Yeah, all right. I feel like there’s not a lot more to say. I want to bring Sara Petersen or one of the other momfluencer experts on to really dig into this one with me because there’s a lot going on. First of all, they have a podcast called The Poddy, which is just creepy. There’s just so much here. It’s a rich text. I’m probably gonna have to come back and do more on this one.

But for now, yes, Trim Healthy Mama is definitely a diet and it’s also a diet you can teach your kids when you’re homeschooling. I will go look up the founders. And I want to say, I’m not anti-homeschool. Like I know there’s lots of people who homeschool but this is definitely homeschooling in the sort of BallerinaFarm/trad wife tradition. Lots of very long hair and tiny, tiny women. 

The other thing is they’re selling—in addition to the curriculum and the cookbooks—a whole bunch of their own xylitol, their own baobab booster? There’s a lot of weird products, too. Oh, this is a whole universe. Okay, we have to move on. There’s too many more diets, but I’m going to have to do more on Trim Healthy Mama. Stay tuned.

Raw Till Four

Someone asked about is Raw Till Four. Sounds fairly explanatory: you have to eat raw food until 4pm. Yeah, the news links I’m seeing about this are like 2015-2017. So I think this is hopefully a trend that’s come and gone. Although you guys are asking about it, so maybe not? Oh, “It was created by Freelee the Banana Girl at theBananagirl.com.”

Well, great. Alright, Freelee. What’s your deal? “The Raw Till Four diet is not just a diet, but a high carb vegan lifestyle. Sure, you will effortlessly lose weight long term from the delicious meal plans, but it is not just a bikini diet for summer. On Raw Till Four not only do you get to eat unlimited calories, but you will also receive a full lifestyle overhaul because it includes more than just what you eat.” Do other parts of my life have to be raw? I don’t understand.

“Raw till four includes all the ways we choose to live our lives, diet, exercise, rest, sleep, mental attitude, ethics, et cetera.” Is this going to be another religious one? Why are there so many religious diets? This reminds me, I need to have Leslie Schilling on. Leslie, you have to come on and explain all this.

Okay, so raw ethics is the goal here. But not good writing! These people are very hungry and they are bad at writing as a result. “With a change towards true health comes true healing and that is going to include more than just physical changes. It is going to include emotional and mental changes as well. And naturally all these changes will be gradual, not overnight. You got to be patient, girls.” Yeah. Okay, so it’s just for girls.

“Most girls who start living a raw till four lifestyle finally begin to see themselves quite differently, with more self love, more happiness, less self criticism. They begin to see others differently, as well. To see the world differently. Most girls also begin to make ethical connections they had never really experienced before, especially those who embrace veganism fully.” Okay, so pro-vegan. Sure, sure. I’m a little sad we don’t get carpaccio, but whatever.

“All these things make Raw Till Four diet a full lifestyle. It doesn’t mean you have to change who you are, what you do for a living or your friends and family.” What? Why would any diet need me to change my friends and family?

“But for most girls, the change will go beyond just diet.”

This is a little alarming. You may end up quitting your job and leaving your partner and ditching all your friends, but don’t worry, it’s gonna be a good thing because you’re eating a lot of banana green smoothies. Oh and they misspell “wholistic.” I love when that happens. It doesn’t have a W. It just doesn’t.

Alright, let’s look at what you eat. “A delicious day of eating on the raw till four diet includes eight banana green smoothies.” That can’t be right.

“A mono-meal of your favorite fruit.” Calling it a mono-meal does not make it better. That this is just a bowl of peaches that you’re eating for food. Oh, and to distinguish from the mono-meal you can also have an unlimited fruit meal where you eat multiple different kinds of fruit together. So that sounds delightful.

And you can also have unlimited potatoes, corn, pasta, rice, and soup. But how can I eat the pasta raw? I don’t understand. And why would I eat potatoes or rice raw? That’s confusing. Okay, “only plant foods are allowed on this program. No animal products, no exceptions.” No sushi then, huh? I was excited about that part of raw-ness.

“Raw fruits and greens, mainly fruit, should be only eaten until 4pm or two hours prior to dinnertime and then high carb cooked dinner of high starch plant foods.” Oh, I see. So you can have your unlimited potatoes and pasta for dinner, as long as you have only fruit and greens all day.

“For best results stick to no cooked food during the day, at least 95% of the time.”

What I like is how sustainable it sounds. Like she said, you’re going to be on it for life. Ditching your friends, having your mono-meals, and your unlimited fruit meals, just really having a big old day. Alright, I’m not gonna read calorie counts. The calorie count is higher than what you normally see on a diet, I will say that. But given that the calorie count is coming from mono-meals of peaches, I feel like uh, no. But I do appreciate that she says, “anything below 2100 calories daily is considered a famine by the World Health Organization, which of course I will not ethically recommend.” I mean she’s drawing her lines in the sand. She’s feeding your mono-meals, but a lot of them. “Oil is not recommended on this program.” Excited for my potatoes that were cooked with no oil.

Let’s see. Yep, “you cannot have vegan junk foods, mock meats, tofu–okay occasionally,” she says. “Eat organic whenever possible. Try to make one day per week a 100% raw day. I call it #raw24. This will keep the focus on high raw, which will keep your system as clean and optimal as possible.”

I mean, it just goes on and on. Yeah, lots of lots of big green smoothies. Bananas are a wonderful staple fruit throughout the day. This is an eating disorder. This is more than a diet. This is an eating disorder. And I am not um throwing shade at vegans, but using veganism in this way is frankly, really unethical, Banana Girl. 

Oh, she also recommends full body sunbathing for a minimum of 20 minutes a day to get your Vitamin D in. I guess that’s part of the whole lifestyle changes she was talking about. You get to sunbathe every day and break up with all your friends. And don’t forget about your monomeals! Okay. That’s Banana Girl. I mean, I just have to say it, she’s bananas. 

Bright Line Eating

I mean, right away, it’s looking a little cult-y because the opening picture is a bunch of people in a conference room type setting, with a woman up on stage doing a TED Talk type of thing. That gives me weird vibes. It’s interesting to lead with that instead of leading with like, usually you see the like really skinny people or the before/after pictures. It makes me think they’re probably trying to bring in both like the community building piece but also that it’s more scientific.

“Bright Line Eating. Discover long term weight loss success, blah, blah, blah, enjoy freedom from hunger, food obsessions and cravings. Show up in the world in a body that feels right for you. Your bright body.” And then there’s a bright lifers core membership.

Oh, there’s a susceptibility quiz we can take! Oooh, let’s take a quiz, guys. Okay, this is going to identify where I fit on the susceptibility scale, which is a measurement that is key to designing the appropriate bright line eating program for my needs. And when they say the susceptibility scale, they mean–Oh, my susceptibility to addictive foods. Okay, okay. “Foods today are highly addictive, but not everyone is equally affected.” So let’s see where I land. 

The first question is: “Think back to a three month stretch of time in your life when your eating was at its worst. Answer these questions about how your eating was during that time period. My ability to control how much I ate.” They want you to rate from one “never really faltered. I stopped eating when I was full” to five “was practically non existent. Once I started eating I felt powerless to stop.”

So they are just setting you up to demonize a time in your life when you use food for comfort, which, as we talk about all the time, is not actually a weakness or a failing. It’s an understandable coping strategy.

I’m trying to decide which way to take it because if I answer it all with the “I had no willpower. I’m addicted to food,” of course we know they’re going to put me on the most extreme version of their diet. I think I’m going to answer it with one, because I’m always interested with these quizzes when you tell them you don’t really want to lose weight. Like on Noom they ask you how fast you want to lose weight, but they still end up pushing you towards restriction. So let’s do that.

“After eating a moderate amount of food, one, I nearly always felt satisfied, all the way up to five, I practically never felt satisfied.” I mean, what is a moderate of amount of food? Who knows. What were you eating, whether you felt satisfied or not? What else had you eaten in the day? Some times of the day we need to eat a lot of food. Some times of the day, we’re not that hungry. Fine, whatever. I’m getting grouchy. “One: I nearly always felt satisfied.” Which is not true, by the way. I frequently eat food and then realize I need more food because I’m hungry. That’s not a bad thing! But again, I’m doing it all ones.

“My cravings for specific food were infrequent and quite mild if I had them at all” up to “five: were frequent, powerful and drove me to go to great lengths to satisfy them.” Alright, one.

“The amount of time and energy consumed by thoughts of my food, my weight, and what I had or hadn’t eaten. one: was small” up to “five: was overwhelming. I could think of nothing else.” In terms of binges, “Did you experience overeat infrequently or occasionally, but never binged” up to “frequent severe binges.” I’m just doing one for everything. 

So what’s interesting is there’s a whole email they’re supposed to send me with a detailed explanation of my score results. So I’ll have to add that to the transcript after I get it, so we can see it. (UPDATE: I now get a million spam emails from Bright Line, but I never got my g-d quiz results! Uncool.)

But what is interesting is having answered the quiz, every question with like the lowest like, “I am not susceptible to food addiction” answer I could give, they are still immediately giving me a screen telling me to “start today for just $20 a month.” So they’re absolutely not saying like, “Hey, you don’t need our program,” or “You seem like you’ve got this all figured out, go with God.” They’re saying like, “Come on, sign up for the diet.” And it goes into a video that is advertising the program.

I think it is clear that Bright Line is a diet and kind of a cult-y one.

Baby Food Diet

So I can’t find a website that really details this program. It seems to be a plan that Tracy Anderson created for Jennifer Aniston to lose weight, where all she did was eat baby food all day and then maybe eat dinner at night. It’s replacing one or two meals or snacks a day with baby food.

So yeah, this is a diet. This is something you would only do in order to pursue extreme weight loss. Unless you’re someone with a medical issue that you can’t chew solid food or can’t swallow it safely, there’s no reason to be eating baby food as a grown up human being. I would imagine you would not feel satisfied. Most baby food is just pureed vegetables, sometimes a little pureed chicken, I guess. Can you have rice cereal? I feel like she probably doesn’t let you have rice cereal.

This one just makes me sad. Jennifer Aniston has made me sad for a long time. Not that I think we have to feel so sorry for skinny white celebrities. Because we don’t. I mean, they’ve chosen this. But you know, she has made so much goddamn money and had so much success in her career and really done all the things and so, why? Why does she still have to be going on baby food diets to tone up for a role? Why is the bar that ridiculously high and that out of sync with how a healthy human being should live? It makes no sense to me.

And to be clear, the harm caused by diet culture towards folks in larger bodies is way, way, way worse than what Jennifer Aniston experiences. Jennifer Aniston also very definitely perpetuates diet culture by being a celebrity who buys into all of this bullshit and lets it get written about in Huffington Post. But I do feel a sadness that there are certain jobs we have accepted in our culture—like actor, pop star, influencer, what have you—that if you do them, extreme thinness is part of your job description. Manipulating your body like this is in your job description. It’s just depressing.

Guys, don’t eat baby food. I mean, unless you think it’s tasty. I don’t know. My friend Amy loves baby yogurt. That can be a thing, I guess. But you know, she doesn’t replace meals with it. She just has one for a snack every now and then. So that’s my take on the baby food diet. 

Potato Diet?

The last thing I will leave you with is the person who wrote in “I don’t think it’s a trend, but my ex does a potato diet. Literally, you only eat potatoes.”

I wonder how many of these single food diets there are? We should put together a definitive list sometime, how many single food diets there are and why those particular foods. I was thinking about trying to eat only potatoes and I guess it would be more satisfying than a Master Cleanse or a juice cleanse or whatever. Because like potatoes, you can have french fries, roasted potatoes are delicious. You can have mashed potatoes. You can make them a bunch of different ways. But you can’t add toppings. I don’t know if you can add salt or other spices. And it’s just patently such a bad idea to only eat one food! It doesn’t matter what the food is, there’s no one single food that’s going to meet all your nutritional needs and consistently fill you up. So obviously that is pretty harmful.

And I am glad for the listener who sent in that note that that person is their ex, because I think it would be hard to be in a relationship with someone only eating potatoes. I would imagine that would limit things, like where you could go out to dinner. I guess maybe a lot of diners? Which is great, I love a good diner. But yeah, that sounds tough. 

Alright guys, that is a wrap on this month’s bonus episode! Thank you so much for listening to Burnt Toast. As always, I would love your feedback on this! Post comments and let me know other diets you want me to look into. I can also do targeted ones where we do more of a deep dive on certain diets. I’m keeping track of the ones that I think require a little more reporting to and I’ll get to them, I promise. 

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Thank you so much for listening to Burnt Toast!

The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by me, Virginia Sole-Smith. You can follow me on Instagram or Twitter.

Burnt Toast transcripts and essays are edited and formatted by Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus size clothing.

The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.

Our theme music is by Jeff Bailey and Chris Maxwell.

Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.

Thanks for listening and for supporting independent anti-diet journalism.