Photo: tacocleanse on Instagram

While tacos may be synonymous with late night snacks, the new Taco Cleanse Diet is the latest unconventional nutritional trend to make a splash in the dieting world. In fact, People reports that actress Jennifer Aniston has even jumped on the bandwagon with this new diet.

Written by Wes Allison, Stephanie Bogdanich and Molly R. Frisinger, The Taco Cleanse diet book was released in December. Surprisingly, it claims that indulging in tortillas, beans and guacamole every day may be your new diet solution to losing weight.

The taco cleanse is a food plan created by the authors, who call themselves ‘Taco Scientists,’ as a guideline to help people switch to vegan tacos for three meals a day for an entire month. Although the book has a light-hearted, humorous tone, the authors argue that eating tacos can significantly improve your mood.

According to the book, having a breakfast taco can help relieve you from the previous night’s toxic consumptions, and eating tacos for lunch can give you an energizing boost to get you through the day.

In an interview with Allure, Brooke Alpert, a registered dietician and author of The Sugar Detox, states that consuming these tacos may lead to weight loss, but is not a healthy method. 

“Any diet—whether it’s watermelon, McDonald’s, or tacos—can help you lose weight by restricting what you are eating both in options and calories. You could have a slice of pizza as every meal throughout the day and most likely lose weight, but you won’t be getting the key nutrients that are necessary for total health,” she said to Allure. “I like that a lot of the tacos that they offer are vegan, but otherwise, I think it’s missing the ‘healthy’ point of view. This sounds like a fun diet to try to do for a day, but as a registered dietitian, I can’t recommend that it’s a lifestyle option.”

Catherine Hauser, a registered dietician at F-Factor Nutrition, also weighs in about the diet’s health risks in another interview with Allure. “Dietary cleanses typically remove potentially harmful or defiling foods or beverages from being consumed, and the ‘taco cleanse’ is quite the opposite. Battered and fried foods, processed sugar, and unnecessary saturated fat are touted in this cleanse,” she says.

After all, it’s always best to maintain a balanced diet with a variety of foods. Although this tortilla-based detox diet may help you to temporarily squeeze into that old pair of skinny jeans, gorging on tacos may not be the healthiest way to achieve a bikini body. Before starting any new diet, be sure to check in with your family doctor or a nutritionist first.