Is the Diet Dead? 11 Food Fads That Promised to Make Us Thin

It used to happen every May. Seeing the words Memorial Day on the calendar kicked off what was annually understood as diet season. The thought of slipping into a bathing suit coaxed even the most levelheaded among us to try and atone for months of cold-weather comfort food transgressions with an emergency "miracle" eating plan--and while the precise prescription has changed over the decades, the general idea has remained more or less the same. In the 1930s it was pairing three square meals with ...