Lillian Bixler

“Hungry Girl”: Snack your heart out!

Lisa Lillien's hit recipe book is low in calories and high in processed foods.

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Looking to chow down on “Sweet & Cap’n Crunch Chicken,” “Cheeseburger Quesadillas” or “Swirls Gone Wild” cheesecake brownies and still fit into your skinny jeans? Well, now you can, thanks to “Hungry Girl: 200 Under 200: 200 Recipes Under 200 Calories.” The recipes come drizzled with cheeky editorial and smothered in ooey-gooey corporate interest, all for the low price of $19.95 plus tax. And, as a bonus, you get all the health dangers of overly processed food and energy crashes from depriving yourself of your caloric needs.

Apparently plenty of women think this is quite the diet quick fix: The book debuted at No. 1 on the current New York Times bestseller list. Author and mastermind Lisa Lillien, also known as Hungry Girl, has made quite a dent in the so-called guilt-free dieting world by dishing up tips on eating convenience (read: processed) foods redeemed by their low caloric value. Artificial sweeteners, liquid egg substitutes and canned goods galore are some of the ingredients used to make these shame-free mini-meals.

The queen of processed food has nearly 700,000 subscribers to her daily e-mail newsletter, can bring about a manufacturer’s biggest sales day by hyping a product on her Web site and, apparently, can sell 200,000 copies of a book. Calories may be negligible in the food, but what fills the void is America’s big fat disordered relationship with food. Hungry Girl’s mantra is, predictably enough, “I’m hungry!” Well, then eat some real food, damn it!

New York University nutrition professor Marion Nestle told the Washington Post that she’s skeptical about the Hungry Girl approach and all the “pink freneticism and exclamation points.” The truth, she says, is that there are two different kinds of American food consumers: Over half are like Hungry Girl, and the others fall in the sometimes-snobbish foodie camp. Of the latter, Lillien says: “They say, ‘Shop the perimeter of the store, never eat anything that’s not organic,’ but it’s B.S., because people can’t live like that forever.” True, not everyone can follow Alice Waters’ strict gastronomic regimen, but instead of a mini happy meal, how about a happy and healthful medium?

Antiabortion stunt girl strikes again

Live Action Films' Lila Rose rolls out another hit piece on Planned Parenthood.

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Brianna is 13 years old and seeking an abortion after getting knocked up by her 31-year-old boyfriend. Lizzie is 15; the father of her unborn baby is 27. The twist: These girls aren’t who they say they are. Instead, they’re college-age pro-life activists who fake pregnancy at Planned Parenthood clinics across the country in order to reveal that the organization isn’t following minor abuse reporting laws. Uh-huh, they’re still at it.

This latest hit piece comes from the same undercover antiabortionist whom Broadsheet wrote about two years ago: Live Action Films’ Lila Rose. Last week, Rose released an updated stunt reel, which shows workers at two different Phoenix clinics responding to the ages of the young women’s partners by saying: “We don’t ask any questions” and “I don’t want to know the age.” In one case, the staff member suggests that the underage girl tell the counselor she’s required to see that, “You’ve seen [the father] around, you know he’s 14, he’s in your grade and whatever. So you know what I mean. Okay, so that’s that problem solved.”

A spokesperson from Planned Parenthood Arizona told a local newspaper that the video is merely “edited propaganda” and pointed out that, although some of the workers were clumsy in explaining policy, established procedure was still being followed. In any case, shortly after the clips were filmed, Planned Parenthood happened to put in place a stricter policy about reporting statutory rape cases. In fact, in the last couple of months, the organization’s Arizona clinics have turned over a total of 24 cases of abuse to law enforcement.

It’s also important to note the dates on these latest videos: Live Action waited almost a year after the clips were filmed to release them. You would think that they would take the tapes straight to the police if their main motivator was protecting the minors involved, as opposed to campaigning against abortion. But, as a Planned Parenthood spokesperson told Broadsheet, “There has always been” — and likely always will be — “a small, yet vocal, minority that has worked to undermine [our] health care mission.” In other words: This won’t we the last we see of this antiabortion stunt girl.

This story has been corrected since it was originally published.

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