I Only Ate Tacos for a Week and It Made Me So Much Healthier
The taco cleanse is real and it's amazing.
by RHEANNA O'NEIL BELLOMO
MAY 15, 2017
28.1K
Once 2016 arrived, the internet exploded with tweets, 'grams, and news stories about the taco cleanse, heralding it as this year's latest and greatest diet. Obviously this sounds absurd—detox with tacos? No way that's possible. But according to the authors of The Taco Cleanse, the tortilla-based diet is "proven to change your life." It's a quirky concept that's gained so much popularity in the last week—even stars like Jennifer Aniston are backing it—that I decided to give it a test run. But not without a few caveats.
Once I got my hands on a copy of the ever buzzy book, I decided, in true Delish fashion, to make this a fun and approachable experience instead of a hard and haughty one. To be honest, I'm decidedly against a 30-day vegan challenge. It's fussy (who wants to hunt around for soy bacon and add nutritional yeast to everything?) and easy to screw up if you're not accustomed to it. Plus, cheese is amazing. And so are eggs. I did, however, choose to eat half of my tacos vegetarian-style, if only to prove that it's not avoiding meat that's the issue.
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@olivesfordinner is hosting a #tacocleanse giveaway on her instagram and blog. Head on over to her account for details. Thanks, Erin
Even registered dietitians agree with me on this one: "The vegan lifestyle is challenging. There are reasons to be vegan but it also has it's shortcomings," says Jim White, R.D. and spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. "To the average consumer, a temporary vegan diet would be very difficult and you'd likely have a lot of deficiencies in your diet from not following it perfectly. You'd also gain back any weight you lost as soon as you switch back to your regular diet."
And so, armed with a nutritionist's knowledge, here's how I ate only tacos for an entire week:
Day 1
It's Sunday and after sleeping in, I make the most of a trip to Brooklyn and seek out Tres Hermanos Taqueria in Bushwick. It's been lauded as one of the best spots in the city for authentic tacos and, after digging into a pair of doubled-up corn tortillas, I have to agree. I tried one carnitas (slow-roasted pork) taco and one avocado-pinto bean taco, which were piled high with shredded lettuce, tomato, and cotija cheese. They were so filling that I couldn't finish everything entirely, even as both breakfast and lunch.
For dinner, I chose a second pair of savory tacos. This time with shrimp and spicy, pan-fried chorizo with the typical spread of queso fresco, lettuce, tomato, hot sauce, and sour cream. Again they were padded with two layers of tortilla, making them so substantial that I couldn't even touch the rice and beans on the side. It seems two is the magic number here.
Day 2
Skipped breakfast because I haven't yet shopped for groceries to make morning tacos (eek!). For the sake of the story—and making this as true-to-life as possible—I took a risk (and crossed my fingers for no e. coli) by choosing Chipotle for lunch. Because making tacos on your lunch break at the office is hard and delivery is not.
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My chicken, sofritas, and barbacoa tacos were great, though the three-taco portion is kind of insane. And I happily survived to tell the tale. That night, after a pit-stop at Trader Joe's, I took to the kitchen and whipped up sautéed shrimp and tomato tacos with onions, garlic, and fresh cabbage.
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Not bad for a no-recipe 10 p.m. dinner. ���� Day two: ✔️ #tacocleanse #****thatsdelish
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Day 3
Finally, my first breakfast taco. Following advice from the Taco Cleanse, I took the idea of a taco and applied it to peanut butter and banana slices (and a tiny bit of cinnamon-sugar). Protein, fiber, potassium. I folded that bad boy in half and ran out the door.
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For lunch, two corn tortillas with adobo-spiced chicken, salty manchego cheese, and fresh pico de gallo. Cactus fries on the side. I'm thinking I can totally get used to this and start picking out the best taco spot to hit later that night.
Dinner today was the winner. I brought my bestie along to Tijuana Picnic in Manhattan's Lower East Side so we could each get an order of tacos and share them—two chicken tacos with chicharrones for her, two tender steak tacos with asian-style slaw for me. Per the book, we each had a smoky mescal margarita, too. After this night, I truly (and naively) believed that the taco diet would be totally sustainable for basically the end of time.