Beets, Tuna and Cauliflower

Iwas sitting down to a dinner of one cup each of tuna, beets and cauliflower the other day when it occurred to me that I don’t like tuna, beets or cauliflower.

“I can’t eat this,” I said to my wife.

“Eat it or die,” she said.

She didn’t mean it as a threat but as a warning. If I didn’t control my weight and my cholesterol, I would not make it past Labor Day.

Only once in three decades of journalism have I known of a woman who has killed her mate for not eating. It happened in Van Nuys. She said, “Eat your green beans.” He said, “Go to hell,” and she shot him.

He should have eaten his green beans, I guess.

“I can take the tuna,” I said, “and I can force down the cauliflower, but man was not meant to eat beets. I’ve never even known anyone who eats beets. Have you ever seen a person actually chew and swallow a beet?”

“I don’t care what you do with half of them,” she said. “Feed them to the dog, rub them in your hair or dance naked around them. But eat the other half!”

I didn’t like the look in her eyes, so I ate them all and skipped the naked dance.

Beets, you see, are part of a new, three-day “Kaiser Permanente Diet” sweeping L.A. People all over town have copies and rave about its effect.

A friend named Joe has lost 40 pounds. His wife has lost 30. They look terrific, feel great and have seen their cholesterol levels plummet overnight to the standard of an Olympic distance runner.

I hate to have to tell them the whole thing’s a fake.

Kaiser disclaims the diet and says it could cause ketosis, which leads to internal rotting, kidney failure and death.

But if you still think it’s worth the weight loss, bon apetit!

I am one of 60 million Americans with high cholesterol and one of 34 million who are overweight. I eat fish, avoid eggs and am acutely aware of my complex carbohydrates. Still, my cholesterol stays high.

When I ask my doctor what to do, he says, “Eat less.” He is not a man of many words and coughs often. I suspect he smokes.

“Is ‘eat less’ the extent of your medical advice?” I ask.

“Yep,” he says, coughing.

Then I heard about the ersatz Kaiser Diet from Joe, who willingly furnished me with a copy. The idea is to diet for three out of every seven days.

“This will change your life,” he said enthusiastically.

He had the same kind of light in his eyes that Scientologists get when they talk about L. Ron Hubbard.

A typical breakfast under the Fake Kaiser Diet consists of one hard-boiled egg. A typical lunch is one cup of cottage cheese and three crackers. You already know about dinner.

It’s a simple diet. No Pritikin-type food exchanges or frozen Nutri-System platters. You eat what they say but only what they say. Americans love the idea of following orders. That’s why Ollie North is a national hero.

Ollie, we know, would eat at least half his beets. And shred the rest.

“We don’t know where the diet came from or who put it out,” Kaiser spokesman Allan Mann said. “Those things originate in places like Cleveland and spread across the country.”

Tracing the origin of the diet, Mann suggested, would be like tracing the origin of a dirty joke.

“It’s one of those urban myths that just get started,” he said, “like the story of the woman who microwaved her dog.”

I wanted to ask if microwaving a dog was part of another fake diet attributed to Kaiser, but by then Mann was discussing an earlier rumor circulated under the hospital’s name.

A “bulletin” once falsely warned that a batch of cartoon transfers that children licked and plastered on their skin had been laced with LSD. The media reported it as fact and panic ensued. It gave childhood fantasies a whole new meaning.

The best diet, Mann said, is the one distributed by the American Heart Assn. that doesn’t require you to OD on beets.

He did finally admit, however, that three days of dieting off and on probably wouldn’t cause ketosis. Kaiser just doesn’t believe it’s generally healthy.

But as long as death by way of internal rotting isn’t a problem, I’m going to stick to it for a while. I’ve lost six pounds already and there is a lot to be said for being able to button my jacket for the first time since 1982.

I’m making only one minor variation in the diet. I lied to my wife and said Mann had suggested we skip the beets, they cause pimples.

I’m not sure she believed me, but she has switched from beets to green beans. Remembering the husband in Van Nuys, I’m going to let it go at that.