How To Eat Everything Without The Calories

We have found that with careful eating, it is possible to eat entire (tasty!) meals without consuming a single calorie!

The following is a list of advice that is a composite of many such lists to be found on the Internet.

1. UNEVEN EDGES ~ Pies and cakes should be cut neatly, in even wedges or slices. If not, the responsibility falls on the person putting them away to "straighten up the edges" by slicing away the offending irregularities, which have no calories when eaten.
2. BALANCED FOOD ~ If you drink a diet soda with a candy bar, they cancel each other out.
3. LEFT-HANDED FOOD ~ If you have a glass of punch in your right hand, anything eaten with the other hand has no calories. Several principles are at work here. First of all, you're probably standing up at a wedding reception (see Food on Foot). Then there's the electronic field: A wet glass in one hand forms a negative charge to reverse the polarity of the calories attracted to the other hand. It's not quite known how it works, but it's reversible if you're left handed.
4. Hot chocolate contains no calories on cold days - they float off in the steam.
5. Chocolate which has melted and re-set contains no calories. They rise to the surface of the fluid and stick to the wrapper.
6. Butter doesn't contain any fat if spread on brown bread.
7. FOOD FOR MEDICINAL PURPOSES: Food used for medicinal purposes NEVER counts. This includes hot chocolate, malted milk, toast, and Sara Lee cheesecake.
8. WHIPPED CREAM, SOUR CREAM, BUTTER: These all act as a poultice that actually "draws out" the calories when placed on any food, leaving them calorie-free. Afterward, you can eat the poultice, too, as all calories are neutralized by it.
9. Diet sodas actually remove the calories from fattening food.
10. The salad on the side of your plate cancels out half the calories from your meal. If you actually eat it it cancels out all the calories.
11. Snacks consumed in a movie or a bowling alley or at a county fair (or similar places) do not count, as they are part of the entertainment.
12. Pieces of cookies contain no calories. The process of breaking causes all the calories to leak out. ALTERNATE: Broken cookies contain no calories as they leak out at the breaks.
13. Late-night snacks have no calories. The refrigerator light is not strong enough for the calories to see their way into the food.
14. A bite off someone else's plate has no calories. (If you eat part of someone else's cake, dessert, etc., all the calories stay in the main body of the food. This is known as the peripheral principle.)
15. Calories don't count if you eat with someone else and you both eat the same food.
16. Food licked off knives, forks, etc. doesn't count if you're in the process of making something else, like a peanut butter sandwich or an ice cream sundae. Similar, food eaten off off beaters (e.g., whipped cream) serving spoons, cake knives, etc. also does not count - after all, you need to taste what you cook to make sure it's all right.
17. Food eaten "out of context" has no calories - for example, any food eaten in a car, on airplanes, trains, etc.; food meant to be eaten hot that you eat cold (e.g., lasagna); food meant to be eaten cold that you eat warm (e.g., half-melted ice cream); food meant to be cooked that isn't (e.g., cookie dough).
18. Food eaten when no one sees you doesn't count.
19. If you think hard about which item on the menu to have, the brain power exerted cancels out 1/3 of the calories of the dish.
20. It's all right to eat a little more if the people/person you're with is fatter than you are.
21. Foods that are the same color have the same number of calories. For example, there is no difference between spinach and key lime pie, or between radishes and candy apples or cottage cheese and vanilla ice cream.
    Note: Chocolate is a universal color and may be substituted for any other food color.
22. CHARITABLE FOODS: Girl Scout cookies, bake sale cakes, ice cream socials, and church strawberry festivals all have a religious dispensation from calories.
23. FOOD ON FOOT: Food eaten standing up has no calories. Exactly why is not clear but the current theory relates to gravity. The calories apparently bypass the stomach, flowing directly down the legs and through the soles of the feet into the floor, like electricity. Walking appears to accelerate this process, so that an ice cream bar or hot dog eaten at the state fair actually has a calorie deficit.
24. TV food: Anything eaten in front of the TV has no calories. This may have something to do with radiation leakage, which negates not only the calories in the food, but all recollections of having eaten it.
25. Food on toothpicks: Sausage, mini-franks, cheese and crackers are all fattening unless impaled on frilled toothpicks. The insertion of a sharp object allows the calories to leak out the bottom.
26. Children's food: Anything produced, purchased or intended for minors is calorie-free when eaten by adults. This category covers a wide range, beginning with a spoonful of baby-food custard, consumed for demonstration purposes, up to and including cookies baked to send to college.
27. Custom-made food: Anything somebody makes "just for you" must be eaten regardless of calories because to do otherwise would be uncaring and insensitive. Our kind intentions will not go unrewarded!
28. FOOD THAT DOESN'T TASTE GOOD doesn't count. This is an enormous category covering a diverse range including airline food, cafeteria meals, and dinner at your sister-in-law's. Also dinners manufactured to be eaten in front of the TV.
29. Pickles count as green vegetables.
30. The calories listed per serving on packages applies to YOUR serving size, regardless of how big it is, as long as you eat it in one sitting.
31. Eating ANYTHING with lettuce or celery in it actually BURNS calories, regardless of what you put on it.
32. Anything whipped or mashed has no calories - they've been beaten out! (i.e. whipped cream, mashed potatoes, etc.)
33. CAKES WITH WRITING ON THEM: Primarily fat, starch and sugar, all cakes are horrendously fattening. However, the calories can be eliminated simply by inscribing "Happy Birthday, Charlie" or "Good Luck, Alice" in colored icing. Not only is it unnecessary to decline, it's impolite.
34. LEFTOVERS: An extra pork chop, the crust of bread, half a Twinkie, anything intended for the garbage has no calories regardless of what happens to it in the kitchen.
35. Eating anything with any fruit or vegetable in it makes you LOSE weight. Anything flavored to taste like fruit products (natural or artificial) falls under this rule, as well. Want Twinkies? Get the ones with the strawberry swirls.
36. Anything you finish off someone else's plate doesn't count as your own calories.
37. Anything runny (like gravy or other sauces) can't hold on to the calories - they all leak out!
38. If you hold a flame (or any heat source) under food, all the calories will be burned off.
39. ANYTHING SMALLER THAN ONE INCH: contains no calories to speak of. For example: chocolate kisses, maraschino cherries, cubes of cheese.
40. If you shake your pop before opening it, 99% of the calories escape into the atmosphere.
41. The more you eat, the faster your metabolism goes, and the more calories you'll burn, so you'll actually LOSE weight.
42. Reward yourself for being "good" all day with a banana split! (also low-cal because it has a banana in it!)

Oh, yes. And a Happy April Fool's Day to one and all!