
Heading into 2025, Peter Sherwood suggests you continue to overeat, drink and be merry – no point starving yourself!
Few have heard of Julius Lardbottom, a secretive multi-billionaire recluse who invented most of the popular diets over the past 50 years. I lucked into an inter view with him at home – an undisclosed location at Chateaux Briand, 22 Quai du Mont Blanc, just up the street from the Roger Federer villa on Lake Zurich.
How did you become so successful selling diets? “Diets don’t work.” What’s that? “Because they don’t work the over weight masses look for new ones. In the West, 35 percent of people are grossly over weight. Hell, any fool could make money in that market.” Really? “Do you live in a cave?! Ninety-five percent of those who lose weight put it back on. The result is a financial oppor tunity made in heaven.”
What about obesity? “Yes, good, isn’t it. I offer something money can buy, hope. People will buy anything. Ask The Donald.” I guess diet fads are relatively new. “Are you kidding? Histor y is littered with dietar y baloney. Compared to all that primitive lunacy, my stuff is medically proven and peer reviewed.
“Get this. In 1727 a bloke named Thomas Shor t wrote a bestseller The Causes and Effects of Corpulence. It said you’ll get fat if you live near a swamp.” Sounds ridiculous. “It gets worse. The Tapeworm Diet: swallow baby tapeworms that grow up to 8 metres long in your intestines and steal the calories before you put on the pork.”
It seems absurd. “Seriously? What about the Cotton Ball Regimen? Just eat cotton balls: bite size and calorie-free. And the brilliant slimming soap from the 1920s called Fat-o-No: scrub hard and wash away the pounds. Smoke more cigarettes was a big hit; get thin and cancer too. In the 19th centur y Lord Byron developed the Vinegar Diet, with side effects of vomiting and diarrhoea. Well, yes, that’ll work.” Crazy. “About as stupid as the Vision Diet. Blue was said to suppress appetite, and ever yone was stumbling around in blue glasses.”
Are your diets more beneficial than all those? “Of course not, they’re just new and brilliantly hyped. How about this: the Cabbage Soup Diet. Man! You wouldn’t want to be on a flight seated next to someone who eats cabbage 24/7. These days, the slick adver tisers go for names to appeal to the smar t-ass techies, like the Hypothyroidism Diet: seaweed and cranberries. That’s about as successful as trickle-down economics, and closer to voodoo than science.” Gee, you couldn’t make this stuff up! “Yes, you can. I do it all the time. What about the popular Sacred Hear t Diet (it can help if you harness a little religion). That’s thin vegetable soup one day, skimmed milk the next, and… wait for it, a potato on Sunday.”
Are you retired now? “Don’t be ridiculous, the people need faith and I’m their man. This is the best business ever invented. Anyone can make money, like one Horace Fletcher in 1903, known as The Great Masticator. He recommended chewing your food 32 times and then spitting it out. His motto? ‘Nature will castigate those who don’t masticate.’ I don’t think even I could get away with that.” So, what’s the slimming secret? “It’s childishly simple, but if I told you I’d be out of a job.”