No Food With My Meals

A razor-sharp, darkly funny confession of the first modern diet craze—and the culture that cheered it on. In this intimate autobiographical essay, Fannie Hurst traces her journey from hearty Midwestern breakfasts to metabolism tests, black coffee, five‑percent vegetables, and the dizzying math of calorie counting. As the pounds drop, she discovers a hollow victory: edginess replaces ease, meals become moral battlegrounds, and she coaxes guests to overindulge so she can savor denial by proxy. With wit and sting, Hurst skewers Hollywood, fashion houses, and mannequin-thin ideals that prize concavity over vitality, warning of fad diets and the costs of chronic undernourishment. Narrated by Jamie Cherie with warmth and bite, this performance captures Hurst’s humor, candor, and hard-won clarity as she argues for moderation, medical guidance, and perspective—regaining enough laughter to see her own absurdities. Timely and timeless, No Food With My Meals is an essential listen for anyone who has ever counted a calorie, chased a trend, or wondered why thinness so often gets mistaken for worth.