Maria Callas’ diet, also known as the tapeworm diet, is a non-food-based hazardous treatment. This study aims to justify whether Maria Callas used this treatment for weight loss. To investigate this, we searched in the ‘white’, ‘grey’, and ‘black’ literature. The historical facts about the use of tapeworm pills seem to be inconsistent and include fake news. In the case of Maria Callas, it has been confirmed by her biography and personal communications that she was diagnosed with a beef tapeworm due to eating uncooked meat. This discredits the hypothesis that she consumed tapeworm pills.

Nowadays, the food industry is integrating environmental, social, and health parameters to increase its sustainable impact. To do this, they are using new tools to calculate the potential efficiency of nutritional products with lower levels of environmental impact. One of these tools is called the ‘nutritional footprint’, created by Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy GmbH. This study aims to review this concept and clarify its historical development, its use in several sectors of the food industry, and its transformation from a manual to an online tool. Results reflected that it is a suitable indicator that integrates nutritional, environmental, and social-economic dimensions to help the decision-making process in the procurement of more sustainable products and, although it is limited to Germany due to the use of the national standard nutritional intakes of Germany, its importance lies in the fact that is a promising instrument to promote environmental sustainability in the context of food, meals, and the hotel, restaurant and catering (HoReCa) sectors.

Nowadays, obesity is a pandemic, and some people seek slimming diets to guarantee their health and quality of life. However, the cult of the healthy body has been an ongoing concern since the beginning of time. Irrespective of the century to which they belong, these cults reflect no empirical knowledge about physiology, nutrients or kilocalories, with some of them being quantitative diets in contrast to qualitative diets, or even simple food recommendations. On the other hand, some of these treatments might have led to the death of a patient, meaning that it is important for people seeking to lose weight to be followed by a nutrition professional until the individual reaches a desirable body weight. In this article, we highlight that each century and each decade have devised different treatments with the aim of improving health, but it will be science and history that will judge whether the results of these treatments have been adequate.