That lean and clueless look

One interesting thing about Lean Cuisine for the Weight Conscious (1978) is that no one, as far as I can tell, wants to take credit for it. While it looks like a common spiral-bound fundraising book, it has no information about who created it.

There's no real set of rules, either, that might clue me in about which diet regimen this is supposed to fall under. The chapter on liver suggests maybe Weight Watchers since they used to be so focused on making sure dieters ate plenty of liver, but that's about it. Given little guidance (and no calorie counts!), I decided to just throw together a day's menu based on whatever weird-looking recipes I found. 

We'll start, of course, with breakfast. Since there's so little guidance on what dieters are supposed to eat, I thought I'd better play it safe and choose a recipe with "breakfast" right in the name. This one is a treat, too, so it should help gradually ease you into dieting (rather than expecting you to get by on a grapefruit half and a cup of coffee).

I'm not sure how much of a treat nonfat dry milk, imitation margarine, cocoa powder, artificial sweetener, dehydrated apple, and corn flakes make when they're all smushed together and frozen. I guess "treat" is pretty subjective for dieters. And I'm sure the tablespoon of reserved corn flakes sprinkled over the top makes all the difference in the world. Let's just move on to lunch....

If you're the stay-at-home type, here's a nice craft project:

Yep! Hollow out an apple, stuff it with diced frankfurters mixed with the apple innards and some garlic salt and curry powder, and then bake the thing. Yum? 

If you work in an office and need to bring your lunch, never fear! You can still have a weird experience with hot dogs, though it will be less elaborate. From the special section of packed lunches, I present Spicy Frankfurters and Friends.

I personally love the idea of someone sitting at their office desk using strings to pull hot dogs out of hot tomato juice (Sorry, tomato soup since it's now mixed with hot dog juices, I guess?) so the franks can be laid out on very thin slices of rye bread and consumed with a pickle and the "soup." The frozen dessert provides extra nonfat dry milk and a nice temperature contrast.

For dinner, we'll be fancy and provide an appetizer so this won't all seem too restrictive: Spicy Dip. 

What makes a bunch of pureed broccoli stalks seasoned with Worcestershire, dry mustard, garlic salt, onion powder, and lemon juice "spicy" is beyond me. Oh, wait, there it is! The "dash cayenne pepper." An immeasurably small amount of cayenne in more than two cups of vegetable matter is sure to heat things up.... And I suppose you're supposed to dip the broccoli crowns in this? (Or go crazy and have it with chips. Who knows what the guiding philosophy is for this one?)

Maybe we should just move on to the main course. Let's try a lovely regional specialty to help counteract all the blandness of dried milk powder and hot dogs.

I will be the first to admit that I have zero expertise in gumbo, but I still feel more qualified to make a gumbo than whoever created this abomination! There is no holy trinity, even though celery, onions, and bell peppers are all diet-friendly. There is no okra or filé powder. There's no shellfish-- just canned tuna, and in case the canned flavor is insufficiently strong, canned asparagus. You know what this does have, though? Yep. Nonfat dry milk, for some reason.

Fine. Let's just skip to dessert. I'll bet you can't guess what it is!

Oh, wait. You probably did because this book has a real fixation on frozen fruit-and-dried-milk concoctions. My favorite part about A Better Banana is that the part that is supposed to somehow make the banana better has just as much brown food coloring as actual cocoa powder, I guess in a bid to make dieters think the mostly-dried-milk topping is more chocolatey than it is. The butter flavoring should really help enhance the dish's richness.

I can kinda see why nobody wanted to take credit for this book. Admitting that you're this fixated on nonfat dry milk, clueless about the meaning of "spicy," and ignorant of famous regional delicacies would just be sad.