The old hedonistic and long-held attitude to life, death and weight loss represented by the flippant, 'Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we may diet', has joined chrome furniture, wax records and Ford Prefects along life's wayside. Today, obesity is literally widespread.

An anonymous American humourist observed, "We're the country that has more food to eat than any other country in the world, and with more diets to keep us from eating it." In fact, there are more different and highly touted diets today than there are foods that are non-carcinogenic or safe to eat. Low carb, hi carb, low fat, high fat, Scarsdale, Atkins, Weight Watchers - there is a diet for everyone who wishes to get slim and trim without effort. I was just looking at the Seven Day diet, which allows you to eat all that you can consume and still lose weight. There is the Three Day diet, and if all else fails, there is the 'Amputation' diet.

reducing obesity

New diets by persons anxious to capitalise on the present obsession with reducing obesity are emerging. Some of these are as entertaining as they are interesting. With the initial success of the book, the Da Vinci Code, the movie and sequel, there is the Da Vinci Diet. A friend called from Barbados and I heard him say, "Check out the new diet based on the mystical properties of pie." In my ancient knowledge of nutrition based on the theory that at my age everything I like or desire is illegal, immoral or fattening, I pounced on the pie diet as greedily as Simple Simon. "Sounds delicious," I remarked, sunk in deep torts about apple and blueberry, cherry and pineapple.

Filling groovy, I sang to myself, with minor liberties and apologies to Simon and Garfunkel. However, my friend quickly pricked the shell of my half-baked ill-founded assumptions. "I know what you're thinking," he remarked crustily, "but it's not that." Guilty as charged, particularly when I heard what 'that' was.

It turned out that I was hit by a homophone. It is not a telephonic instrument owned by a gay person, but words that sound the same but have different meanings. The diet is based, not on 'pie' but on 'pi'. The recent bestseller, the Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown made much of the dominance of 'pi' outside of mathematical circles. According to one source, "Pi or 'p' is a mathematical constant whose value is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter." Another reference states. "Pi has been an object of curiosity and study to mathematicians for thousands of years. Although it rises from one of the simplest and most symmetric shapes, it presents many mathematical mysteries: it is irrational, and indeed, transcendental. It seems to have a mystique that has endured over the centuries. It has its own history, its own legends and its own folklore - like the circle, it just seems to keep coming around and around."

Interestingly, diets are like that too - some, like the lemon diet, are irrational, they transcend time, they have their own mystique, and they just keep coming around.

mathematical formula

Now Pi and a diet fad are inextricably linked. A few years ago, American baker Stephen Lanzalotta grandly announced the advent of the 'Da Vinci Diet' based on a complicated mathematical formula he created that requires the consumption of 52 per cent carbohydrates, 20 per cent protein and 28 per cent fat. Reaching deep into the Renais-sance, and hoping for one of his own, Lanzalotta is once more raking in the bread because of a diet based on bread. As a 'bread-nut' myself, and half-brother of the Pillsbury dough boy, I really don''t care about the man's motives. I love his knead to spread breaderly love.

If you are nuts about milk, and not about Pasteurisation, there is a Biblical diet called the 'Maker's Diet' that God, in his wisdom, revealed to Jordan S. Rubin, a Messianic Jew who describes himself as a 'biblical health coach'. Based on the Old Testament's Book of Leviticus, the Maker's Diet says the Lord wants you to consume food in a form the body was designed for. That 'form' is organic and unprocessed. The good news is that milk is in. The bad news is that it must be raw and used only as a yogurt drink derived from fermented milk. It is enough to precipitate extreme lactose intolerance.

Tony Deyal was last seen saying that from his personal experience, while a mind is a terrible thing to waste, a waist is a terrible thing to mind.