Yellow Flag!

I cry foul! Taco Bell gets penalty flag from me! Today I saw a commercial for the Taco Bell Drive-Through Diet ®. Initially I thought it was a Saturday Night Live skit; sadly, it is real. Fast food has its place, and an occasional taco isn’t going to kill anyone…I’m no Taco Bell hater…but a whole DIET based on eating crap?! Come on.

If one wants to lose weight, eating Taco Bell is certainly not the best way to go. They suggest this is a valid diet because the items on the “diet” menu have “less than 9 grams of fat.” Go ahead. Check out the rest of the “nutrition” information for the “taco diet”: http://www.tacobell.com/fresco/nutritionGuide.html   

Let’s examine the “Fresco Crunchy Taco.” It only has 7 grams of fat (the selling point) and 150 calories! Wait – let’s do the math. 9 calories per gram of fat x 7 grams of fat = 63 calories from fat (Taco Bell’s information states 70 calories from fat). According to this, 47% of the calories from this “diet” food is from fat. (Oh, and did I mention 13 grams of carbs, 20mg of cholesterol and 350mg of sodium?)

Stop the presses!!  I just read the disclaimer on the bottom of the page. And, I quote:

“DRIVE-THRU-DIET® IS NOT A WEIGHT-LOSS PROGRAM. FOR A HEALTHIER LIFESTYLE, PAY ATTENTION TO TOTAL CALORIE AND FAT INTAKE AND REGULAR EXERCISE. TACO BELL'S FRESCO MENU CAN HELP WITH CALORIE REDUCTIONS OF 20 TO 100 PER ITEM COMPARED TO CORRESPONDING PRODUCTS ON OUR REGULAR MENU. NOT A LOW CALORIE FOOD.”

Those sly dogs! They did say “diet” and not “weight loss program” in their ad, didn’t they? Diet, by definition, can mean the following: food or feed habitually eaten or provided.

Well, bust my britches! (pun intended) I guess I have to take it all back. Technically speaking, eating primarily Taco Bell can be called a diet! Hells Bells - I’m going to market the Twinkie ® diet! They also have 150 calories and only 4.5 grams of fat!!