From Dr. Boli’s Scientific Journal.

“Peer-Reviewed for Your Protection.”

Although Dr. Boli himself contributed much in the early stages of the work (a private trans-Atlantic cable having been laid for the telegraphic correspondence involved), it was really Charles Darwin who earned the title of father of the theory of Natural Selection. Nevertheless, Dr. Boli has continued the work more actively than his friend Darwin, being deceased, has been able to do; and furthermore, whereas many other researchers have been content to examine Evolution from a merely historical perspective, Dr. Boli has concentrated his attention on practical applications.

It has long been the dream of every self-described “nutritionist” to discover the perfect human diet: the regimen that will lead to optimum health and longevity. This can only be achieved by discovering the foods that human beings were adapted to eat.

A brief explanation will suffice. Natural selection, that marvelously efficient mechanism of creation, ensures that every creature is perfectly adapted for consuming the food that best sustains it. Thus, for example, hummingbirds have long bills perfectly adapted to probing the nectar-bearing spurs of sweet flowers; anteaters have snouts and tongues perfectly adapted to rooting out ants; herring gulls have beaks perfectly adapted to snatching bags of potato chips from unwary beachgoers; and so on. Each creature is necessarily endowed not only with the equipment for consuming its perfect food, but also with the instinct to seek that food.

Nature creates nothing in vain; everything has a purpose. It is clear, then, that the human sense of taste must have its purpose, and that that purpose must be to identify for us which foods we ought to eat and which things are not in fact food. This is the astonishingly simple solution to the problem that has baffled nutritionists for generations. Pure reason shines its light where countless ridiculously contrived studies and metastudies have only deepened the darkness.

To eat a perfect diet, we must eat exclusively food that tastes good.

As an illustration, observe the following two lists:

Things that taste good:

Fresh blueberries
Yunnan tea
Stilton cheese
Stayman apples
Rhone wine
Home-grown tomatoes
Whole-grain bread

Things that don’t taste good:

Sewing machines
Mortar
Plastic bags
Kerosene
Light bulbs
Bureaucrats
Aluminum siding

Now observe that we could, without altering the lists at all, change the headings above the lists to “Things That Are Healthy to Eat” and “Things That Are Not Healthy to Eat.” The correspondence is perfect. Things that taste good are things that are healthy to eat. It follows, of course, that the things that taste best are the healthiest to eat.

The Darwin Diet, which Dr. Boli has named for his fondly remembered friend, consists, therefore, in making use of the adaptations by which Natural Selection has ensured the survival of our species. To follow the Darwin Diet, one must restrict one’s food intake to things that taste good, ruthlessly rejecting everything that does not taste good. By this entirely natural method the body may be brought to the peak of health.

Much more work remains to be done. The principle has been established, but Dr. Boli will not rest until he has been able to compile a list of the things that, according to this revolutionary discovery, are healthiest for the body. He has an Ethiopian restaurant on his research schedule this evening, and an Italian bakery tomorrow morning, and he will be keeping careful notes.