Diets are like dreams. Everyone likes talking about their own, but no one REALLY wants to hear about yours. But I’m going to keep typing, because it is a distraction from not eating cheese. According to all of Pinterest, the Whole30 (no space, I’ve learned, between the whole and 30, which is also how your withdrawal appears–like a run on sentence with no end) isn’t a “diet” or a “fad.” It’s a “way of life.” Which is such a modern day solution:

“Oh, don’t like your relationships or your family or your job or your current living environment? If you just EAT DIFFERENTLY, you will solve everything.”

You know what our great-grandparents ate differently? Sometimes instead of baking the fish and broiling the potatoes, they would bake the potatoes and broil the fish.

Obviously, we are not going to eat and drink the same way our ancestors did. That’s just ridiculous. Food consumption has changed dramatically. For example, we now know that honey is dangerous to babies, milk needs to be boiled to not implode your intestines, and flash freezing vegetables is actually good for you. However, we also ingest a fuck-ton more sand, saw dust, yoga mats, and plastic than our grandparents. The filler they put in food now isn’t just corn starch anymore. We eat bamboo. Like panda bears. No wonder we all feel drunk and lazy as fuck all the time. And not just because we are Americans. Because we are literally weighed down with stuff only folks with pica would get excited over. The typical American diet is the Pica Diet. And the only reason no one has capitalized on that is because “eating shit” is hard to market. Even with all the weird SubReddits out there.

If you don’t know about Whole30, it’s a combination of Atkins, gluten-free, dairy-free diets, and morbidly low self esteem. Most normal people can’t afford the time or money to follow through on the Whole30 diet, so they will come up with their own bastardized version of it (which will immediately be admonished and shamed across multiple platforms).

I started on a Thursday, why not? Because time is arbitrary and pointless and ends up screwing us all in the end (just like this diet). And I was off to a terrific start. Firstly, all I did was fast because I ran out of eggs and nothing else is allowed on this diet that wasn’t rendered from the ground whole or product of an animal. It’s fine though. I don’t eat much at work. Since I’m so busy now, I barely remember to go to the bathroom, or look outside, or remember to water the fake plants.

Day 2 was better: less fasting, but more confusion. I understand getting behind less additives and preservatives, but literally everything I touch has preservatives: allergy medicine, eye drops, hand sanitizer. Am I not allowed to have Advil on this diet? Because you can’t expect me to not drink wine and also have to interact with co-workers. It’s one or the other when you remove pain killers from the equation.

On Day 3, I was debating just throwing my hands up and buying baby food. That shouldn’t have sugar in it right? Ahhh crap, 9G of sugar? No wonder there’s so many chunky, happy babies rolling around and giggling at sugar-induced hallucinations.

By Day 7, I figured out what these people (I’m gonna call them Holy Wholers now) on the online boards were trying to narrow down. NATURAL sugar is fine, as long as it come directly from the source. And apparently, sucking on sugar cane is not “the source” so gonna be canceling some imports from Brazil in a couple minutes. Unfortunately, natural is one of those words being thrown around by the food marketing industry for the past 2 decades. Like “organic,” “artisan,” “gluten-free,” and “bulletproof.” Also, whoever started this diet had a serious vendetta against dairy. I don’t know if a cow murdered their entire family and stole the family jewels, but I haven’t seen someone take this strong a stance against cow milk since some tree-nut lobbyist found out you could get white juice from an almond.

As far as diets go, this is by far the most gimmicky I’ve seen in awhile. Which means the followers are also the most annoying. It’s the Scientology of diets. Sure, everyone is welcome, but you have to pay a lot of money, make sure you follow all our rules, and get your friends and family are involved too or else you can get publicly shamed. All the celebrities are doing it too. Stars! They’re just like us: Sucked into marketing schemes until you alienate everyone around you!

People who get behind fads like to defend it to the death, like Cross-fitters, or CBS sitcom viewers, or 15th-century Catholics. I’m sure it stems from a need for control, or some other psycho-babble, but these Holy Wholers are the MEANEST people I’ve seen in a long time. And I’ve read internet comment sections. These people condemn you back to day one if you accidentally inhale the aroma from your local bakery. They have hang ups and week-long arguments about fermentation. They can’t decide if bee pollen shots should be under “rich people problems” or “poor people problems.”

Maybe I could forgive their knee-jerk (mmmm, beef jerky…) reactions if they would just admit that everyone on these online boards are just “hangry” (hunger-induced anger if you haven’t seen a Snickers commercial in 5 years) all the time. I don’t get hangry , but I imagine if people are susceptible to this, they may have made some serious enemies in a month.

Food isn’t the root of all problems, but it certainly isn’t a cause either. My problem with this diet is that they tout it out as a lifestyle, but don’t actually follow through on the “life” part. Food shouldn’t be the scapegoat here (mmm, goat cheese…), because our bodies come in contact with toxicity every day that has nothing to do with food. People work in areas that are breeding grounds for viruses and stress. There are toxic relationships, toxic vices, toxic thinking. We put things ON our bodies that are labeled as carcinogens (read: Avon), and we walk around our neighborhoods without paying attention to noise and light pollution.

I don’t want to be a hippie or “off-the-grid” because, forgive me, human connection is more important than self-righteousness. This also is a very discriminatory lifestyle, as well. You have to have a disposable income (and no children, unless they are also on Whole30) to buy these items. And access to a Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s. Usually with a reliable car. And you may read the labels, but you have to read the company’s history too. A simple check on Wikipedia or Google reveals that a lot of these “local” or “independent” products are actually owned by multi-billion dollar corporations cashing in on a fad. Before Whole30, I’m willing to bet that 75% of the drinks you consumed were products of Coke, Pepsi, or Coors.

I completed the “challenge” without much issue (at least my hindsight is telling me there were no issues; I blocked a lot of days). However, I felt like I cheated because it was done during the winter when no one was inviting me to go out, patios weren’t open, and sleeping 10 hours was easier than avoiding the cold grip of reality. Also, by giving up several vices at once, I may have accidentally picked up another addiction. I drank more tea than the daily Irish or Chinese grandmother recommendation. Just constantly brewin’ and stewin’. Like a thug witch.

Then came the fun part: the reintroduction of foods, or as the Holy Wholers un-cleverly call it, “reintro.” Not because I was excited to drink milk again, but because the articles written about “reintro” are AH-mazingly hilarious. Especially people’s trepidation about trying alcohol again, as if the world was asking them to indulge in black-tar heroin for the first time. Unless you had a 3-a-day absinthe habit before, I don’t think that Shiraz at dinner is going to make you forget everything you just learned. People were also scared about eating cheese again. As much as I appreciate holistic approaches to curing modern diseases, laying off the Kraft singles for a month is not going to make you LESS lactose intolerant. Just intolerant of biology education in general.

I’m not going out on a completely cynical note. Even though this diet makes me loathe the sugar lobby more. Somehow they made Americans believe “fat” was the virus in the obesity epidemic and “sugar” was just a silly environmental factor. Sugar is in EVERYthing. Why do we need sugar in bread? After Whole30, I felt like I was eating a cupcake instead of toast (mark my words: cupcake toast is next hipster bakery trend). This country needs a taste bud detox and go back to hardtack and gruel for a while. Oh wait, I’m trademarking that one right now: Taste Bud Detox. This diet was expensive as hell, I need some way to make the money back.

If you want to do this diet because you need to figure out what in your life is giving you discomfort and pain, I will Whole30-Heartedly support you (guys, I’m wrecking this pun-life). And after you give up food and alcohol for a month, and realize it doesn’t magically reset your metabolism or eliminate blood pressure meds or give you back the hugs you didn’t get as a child, I will be here. With this nugget (mmm…chicken nuggets…) I learned: Life is more than fitting in your genes.