My parents are all about diets. In their case, diets don't consist of excersice or point-counting. Instead, it just means that they obsess about various theories about nutrition. These obsessions take on a life of their own, so that any recognizable scientific basis for these theories has been twisted and skewed into a set of uncohesive dietary rules which end up clashing.
Of the two parents, my father takes the cake (ha!) for being the absolute king of obsession and deformation of views. That is to say, as my father is reading a passage out of The Schwarzbein Principle the meaning of the words changes in mid-processing and gets crushed within the squishy folds of my father's very demented brain.
Now, he has very good reason to start worrying about his health. This year he was diagnosed with diabetes. He also happens to bathe rarely and rides his motorcycle aggressively, probably not considering the physics of a fat man taking sharp turns very suddenly. In addition, my dad doesn't excersise. If he wants to go down to the garden from the back porch (approximately 400 yards) he will drive his tractor there.
He tells me how horrible carbohydrates are and that they will kill me if I eat them. Sugar is what killed his parents. "If only he'd known sooner, they would still be alive" he says.
Anti-carb diets are not new and definitely not discovered by my wannabe-genius father. The South Beach diet and the Atkins diet all claim that sugar and carbs are what make you fat/unhealthy.
Now, Kwasznieski and Sczwartzbein actually make a lot of reasonable claims. Over all they say that artifical and hydroginated fats are really bad for you, as are high amounts of sugar and carbs. All these things are not natural and are high in calories and chemicals, etc. They claim that you should eat healthy fats (nuts, fish, blah blah) and veggies and fruits, and above all, small portions. The important thing is to get a good balance of fiber and grains with healthy proteins, etc. Yeah, sounds pretty reasonable. Kwasznieski's diet is a little harder to wrap the mind around because he isn't so much about balancing a diet. He claims we need to cut out all carbs and sugars, including a lot of vegetables like carrots or even things like ketchup. He endorses eating a lot of fat, not necessarily meat. Just a lot of oils. Which feels disgusting even to type- anyway, I'm no expert on this I'm just summing it up. But he does say that nuts and berries are good for you and once again, eating small amounts is good.
My dad, however, loves to scramble any reasonable information to fit into his "the more the merry-er" formula. So instead of eating reasonable amounts and balancing your diet and not drinking artificial sweetner.... suddenly apples are poison and eating eight eggs for breakfast and shit tons of butter will CURE his diabetes. My father drinks about a carton of heavy whipping cream a week. He likes to call this diet (in Polish) "DIETA OPTYMALNA" Needless to say, if I don't get to the kitchen fast enough in the morning to prepare my own coffee, I get a cup of heavy whipping cream with a dash of diluted coffee in it. One sip of that feels like eating icecream during a marathon run.
(milk was a bad choice)
All it takes for her is 1 article. I remember when she thought coconut oil was going to cure me of my polycystic ovarian syndrome and depression. When packing up my last apartment, I filled an entire box with vitamin bottles along with many herbal and "asian" supplements which always taste like unbrushed teeth. I've actually had my mom chase me around with a spoon of fish oil. I remember when she discovered noni juice just as she recently discovered (in an article) the WONDERS of pomegranate (which she cannot pronounce).