Uh, I’m Pretty Sure People Would Know

New York Times Magazine story editor Willy Staley tried Sean O’Mara’s “Living Diet” (nothing but steak and fermented foods like sauerkraut) for a week: To O’Mara, the diet is not just a temporary means of losing weight but a way to eat for good. He has been doing it for 10 years, and credits it with turning his life around. At one point in our conversation he pulled up the Bristol Stool Chart, which ranges from Type 1 (“separate, hard pellets”) to Type 7 (“watery, no solid pieces”). O’Mara is consistently delivering Type 4 (“smooth, soft, like a snake”), with pointed ends, indicative of healthy rectal function, he told me. “When you start eating healthy, you don’t need toilet paper,” he claimed. “Animals in the wild have no residual stool on their anus.” He described a proper bowel movement to me this way: odorless, wipe-free, over in three to seven seconds and “nearly orgasmic.” “I could have a bowel movement behind a sheet at a dinner party in the corner of the room,” he said, “and nobody would know.” My first thought upon reading this was, What a load of shit. Then I realized, well, yes, literally. Then I thought about it some more and realized this is the Platonic ideal of a bullshit claim. If I told you that, say, I can eat an entire meal while doing a headstand, you could say, “I don’t believe you, show me.” But who in their right mind would challenge this quack O’Mara on this one? Certainly not the hosts of the dinner party, that’s for sure.  ★