Strange Sauce: The week in national food news

OUCH.

Although we prefer him plump, George Costanza has agreed to be the new face of Jenny Craig. A woman named Christine Dougherty is the new face of Taco Hell Bell, and has signed on to promote the introduction of "Fresco Meals" and the "Drive-thru Diet." Dougherty claims to have lost 54 pounds utilizing the Drive-thru Diet and "other sensible choices." (You have to wonder what "sensible choices" mean to someone who tries to lose weight by eating at Taco Bell -- particularly since the Journal of the American Dietetic Association reported this week that the calorie counts listed on supermarket items and fast-food menus are often inaccurate.)

The McRib returned to McMenus everywhere. A woman in Missouri caused $3,000 worth of damage to a McDonald's after going apeshit because she didn't enjoy her hamburger. Al Bernardin, the man who invented the Quarter Pounder in 1971, died of a stroke, and a gentleman at a Swedish McDonald's experienced profuse bleeding after puncturing his gum on a nail that had made its way into his burger.

The wafting scent of a roast in the oven can make us feel hungry, and researchers are claiming that the next diet trend will incorporate manufactured aromas that are capable of making us feel full. In another welcome development, David Nutt, a British drug expert, has created a consumable synthetic substance that makes you feel drunk without the hangover. Yes, please.

Li Jingcao, a fourteen-month-old boy in China, accidentally shoved a chopstick up his nose and had to have it surgically removed from his brain by a neurosurgeon who has expertise in removing lodged chopsticks from eyes, ears and foreheads. We think that doc's phone number should be next to 911 on the speed dial of every sushi joint in Asia.

Have a tasty weekend.