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#1 (**permalink**) 08-18-2003, 01:22 AM

A harry potte diet book

Summary:
from telegraph.co.uk:

The battle between Harry Potter and the late Dr Atkins is one of charming escapism against rampant self-obsession, and it seems that the latter has won. There is, however, one way for J K Rowling to reclaim her rightful position at the top of the bestseller charts: she must launch the Harry Potter Diet Book, a collection of magical recipes to make unwanted flab vanish.

The Dursleys, the unpleasant family with whom Harry lodges, have a tendency to fat. Harry himself is thin, partly because the measly Dursleys deny him adequate rations, but also presumably because of the healthful dietary regime at Hogwarts school. The Hogwarts menu, rather like Atkins, is strikingly high in meat: Roast Chicken, Roast Beef, Lamb Chops, Fried Sausages and Pork Chops make frequent appearances.

Read more at the link above; thanks to HPANA for the tip!

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I am living proof of the magic of the Hogwarts Diet
By Jenny McCartney
(Filed: 17/08/2003)

The news that sales of Dr Atkins's diet book last week outstripped those of the latest Harry Potter has sent shock-waves through the nation: for what greater measure of Atkins's rampaging success could there be than to topple the mighty J K Rowling from the summit of our bestseller lists?

Unfortunately, poor Dr Atkins wasn't there to savour his moment of glory: he died earlier this year, aged 72, after a nasty slip on an icy pavement during the short walk to his New York office. He would surely have been proud to have it reported, however, that although Robert Atkins is indubitably dead, at least he died thin.

The Atkins high-fat weight-loss regime has been around for 30 years, but it is only now that Atkins-mania has truly swept the wobbling West. Never before has a diet wielded such heavy economic clout. Inspired by Atkins's rail-thin celebrity devotees, innumerable British shoppers are spurning bread, potatoes and blacklisted fruits, and instead stacking their trolleys high with meat and eggs.

Butchers, so recently downcast by the effects of BSE and creeping vegetarianism, are exultant, while bakers slip mournfully towards the breadline. Atkins Nutritionals Incorporated, a burgeoning global industry, will soon launch its own range of low-carb ice-creams and chocolate bars in Britain.

The battle between Harry Potter and the late Dr Atkins is one of charming escapism against rampant self-obsession, and it seems that the latter has won. There is, however, one way for J K Rowling to reclaim her rightful position at the top of the bestseller charts: she must launch the Harry Potter Diet Book, a collection of magical recipes to make unwanted flab vanish.

The Dursleys, the unpleasant family with whom Harry lodges, have a tendency to fat. Harry himself is thin, partly because the measly Dursleys deny him adequate rations, but also presumably because of the healthful dietary regime at Hogwarts school. The Hogwarts menu, rather like Atkins, is strikingly high in meat: Roast Chicken, Roast Beef, Lamb Chops, Fried Sausages and Pork Chops make frequent appearances.

Like Atkins, it is also rather light on fruit, but there the similarity ends, because the Potter diet is a much more liberal regime: it allows, for example, for the intake of multifarious carbohydrates and sweets: pies, cakes, puddings, trifles, Chocolate Frogs, Cauldron Cakes, and Bertie Bott's Every Flavoured Beans, of the jelly variety.

Some of you might be wondering by now if it would really be possible to lose weight on the Harry Potter diet. I can assure you that the pounds will simply melt off, so long as you stick to just a few simple restrictions. During the first five days of the Harry Potter diet, you can eat absolutely anything you like, but it must be either Bott's Beans or Chocolate Frogs, washed down with lemonade. There is no problem about the specific flavour of the jelly-bean: that is a choice left entirely up to you.

By the end of the five days, you may be experiencing severe appetite loss. Feel no alarm: this is entirely to be expected. A chemical process known as nausea has set in, whereby the lobe in the brain connected to desire becomes flooded at the oft-repeated sight of a Bott's jelly-bean, triggering an entirely natural sense of repulsion. This is very much what would have happened to Stone Age man when he went on a hunting trip for days on end, with only jelly-beans closely packed into his worn leather food pouch.

It is now that you can cautiously introduce Steak-and-Kidney Pie and Fried Sausages, in 300 g portions. By the end of the first fortnight subsisting on only jelly-beans, frogs, pie and sausages, you will have lost at least three pounds. After this, you are permitted to include Cauldron Cakes, but only one every other morning.

It occurs to me, however, that I am absolutely crazy to be handing out these Potter diet tips for free, even though they have worked splendidly for me. A book along such lines could only further enrich J K Rowling who, delightful though she is, is already sitting on a multi-million-pound fortune.

The real problem with both the Atkins diet and the Harry Potter diet, successful as they both may be in the short term, is that neither has been rigorously tested over the course of an entire lifetime. It is true to say that Dr Atkins followed his own diet for 30 years, but he then undermined the experiment by dying at the relatively early age of 72 in an accident unrelated to food.

I propose, instead, a book based on the diet of my grandfather, who celebrates his 97th birthday on holiday in Canada this week, and has always been fashionably slim. His regime allows for handsome quantities of Guinness and whiskey, porridge, potatoes, buttered cake, lamb chops and stews heavily seasoned with HP sauce. It is supplemented by periods of physical work in the garden. I swear, this one could blow Atkins right out of the water: it even allows for the occasional nuclear fat-carbs combo of fried bread, cruelly denied by every other diet in history. Publishers, are you listening?

iharrypotter.net