The Baby-Food Diet

My favorite gossip site sang out the news: Jennifer Aniston was denying the rumor that she had embarked on the latest fad diet, the Baby Food Cleanse. A Google search was enough to make me, in my doughy new-mom state, salivate. Quick weight loss! Convenient! And best of all, I had all the components in my kitchen: pureed beans, apricot goo, and something that can most delicately be described as pregurgitated corn. My extra pounds would be gone in no time.

The gist of the cleanse is this: Eat 14 jars of baby food throughout the day and then dine on a mommy-size healthy dinner. Like most trendy weight-loss tactics, this program is highly unscientific, hardly balanced, and a regimen no doctor in her right mind would recommend (unless, of course the doctor was a pediatrician, and the patient weighed -- rather than aimed to lose -- 10 pounds).

Cleanses are buzzy these days in the land of weight loss -- short-term commitments that aim to purify your system by replacing the junk you usually eat with foods free of artificial flavors, sweeteners, or preservatives.

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