Cannibals, self-serving parasites, tapeworms in tiaras, swimming through the intestines of the state, sucking all the goodness out of it for their own repugnant gratification.
But perhaps none was as strange as the tapeworm diet, in which dieters swallowed an unhatched tapeworm and let it grow inside them by consuming undigested meals.
Since then, diets have advised us all sorts of things: to excessively chew, to not chew at all, to swallow a grapefruit per meal, non-stop cabbage soup, even consumption of arsenic, or tapeworms.