Friday, January 05, 2007

Eat and Stay Slim

With the start of each new year comes the annual torrent of resolutions. The most popular resolutions revolve around health: losing weight, eating more nutritious foods, or exercising. For that reason, now's the perfect time to introduce Better Homes and Gardens' 1968 volume Eat And Stay Slim. It's just the thing to start you on the way to a healthier lifestyle.


1. Front cover - Eat and Stay Slim.. by gnawing on this giant hunk of beef!


2. Strange enough, a mouthless man (who looks a bit like Hunter S. Thompson) battles 'telltale bulge' and eats a candy bar.. all while two fully-faced children torment him at the beach. Hasn't he had a hard enough life, what with lacking a mouth and having a watch carved out of his arm?


3. In this scene, Shirley MacLaine can't zip up her cool paisley dress so she's given a letterman sweater.


4. Here the book shows its recommended exercise regimen.


5. If you lost your rolling pin, you might want to take your tandem bike out for a ride. It doesn't matter whether you sit in the back with your feet up or kill yourself peddling a fully-occupied tandem bicycle up a steep incline by yourself; it's just good exercise!


6. Welcome to Mount Reduction. I wonder how much altitude could have influenced this scene.


7. Don't you just hate Pampered Beef? They always get whatever they want while everyone else has to work for a living!


8. MMM MMM Good! Chilled Beef-A-Mato and Cuke-Buttermilk Soups! Great for parties! Best garnished with daisies!


9. "Iceberg Ring with crisp lettuce in lime-flavored gelatin proudly displays a peak of Tuna Salad -- a refreshing combination." And I'm proud to display this to you!


10. This is actually the picture that persuaded me to buy this book. Why would you try to melt desiccated skin over your asparagus? You have to look at it up close; no cheese has that kind of texture!

4 comments:

Jason Stockl said...

I love your sarcastic commentary!

I think my Mom still has this book (and refers to it, if I'm not mistaken...)

Maria said...

Thanks (although, I don't know what you're talking about sarcastic..)! :-D

Really?! Most of the stuff in the book doesn't seem too bad, but.. she hasn't made those soups by any chance?

Anonymous said...

OMG - I've just discovered this site and it's great! I cannot CANNOT believe the ingredients in these gelatin 'salads'?! I'm laughing so hard. (And I'm sort of curious to make one.)

Thanks!

Maria said...

When it comes to gelatin salads, each one is more amazing than the last. At the very least, I'm sure these salads truly did aid in dieting.. I don't know many people alive during the heyday of the jell-o salad who actually enjoyed them! Recently, I found I have some new unique varieties I haven't posted here, so I really ought to buckle down!

...Some say there's no time like the summer for gelatin salads... :-D