A few days ago at the sandwich place I work at, this guy came in and asked to order off the vegan menu. Being the new girl and still tip-toeing around most menu questions, I decided it would be best if I delegated the question to the more informed foodies. After asking if the asparagus soup was vegan (it’s not), he asked if he could order the black bean burger.

While I would have loved to say yes and pass that order off (because this long line is making me uncomfortable and could you just order something off a written menu please?!), I knew that the bean burger was a nighttime-only deal.

After asking if there wasn’t anything else vegan he might order, he said, “Alright, I’ll just get the sub sandwich, with mayo please”.

Well sure, don’t mind if you do — BUT isn’t “don’t you have anything vegan?” kind of a hop, skip and a bunch of leaps away from a ham, turkey and salami sandwich? It could just be me, but there seemed to be something fishy about this guy.

As someone who was a vegetarian for six years, it seems strange to me that people would adopt such a serious lifestyle because it’s the latest fad diet.

I will admit, however, my vegetarianism began because I wanted to be just like my new best friend who “just couldn’t do that to an animal.” So I spent the next six years getting Wendy’s baked potatoes without the chilli and eating buns with ketchup and mustard on them (really not as bad you might think).

I chided my fellow lunchmates for eating sandwiches with fluff in them: “You know that has gelatin in it, don’t you??” I made jokes about tofurkey and reveled in my greenness. I walked my adolescent, protein-deficient body proud through the sixth grade hallways because, let’s face it, you eat cow, and, well, I don’t.

I abandoned that whole veggie gig my junior year of high school because, frankly, I think I starting salivating for a corn dog only months into my six-year long fiesta of mixed greens and bread.

While I felt that my vegetarianism was little more than eating grass and grains for years (and the occasional oops-I-forgot-I’m-a-vegetarian-Taco-Bell episode), I will say this is not intended to be an assault on vegetarians.

Certainly being a vegetarian or a vegan has very real moral reasons, and its beneficial effects for the environment shouldn’t be doubted either.

However, health-crazed America has seen veganism and vegetarianism rise to the top of the trend ladder of new and exciting ways to lose weight.

It seems as though some people have found the “stop eating crap” mantra of the wise modeling industry gurus and authors of “Skinny Bitch” endearing enough to forgo “dead, rotting and decomposing flesh” altogether.

There’s nothing wrong with being a vegetarian or vegan if it’s what you really want, but jumping on the bandwagon because you think it’s “in” and a fast way to shed weight is likely to see you reverting to your old ways in no time.

Cutting out meat isn’t the only “way of life” that’s trending lately. There’s been talk of the “Paleo Diet,” a diet that says you should only endeavor to eat foods that our paleolithic ancestors ate.

In other words, you can eat meat (grass-fed pasture animals), fish, eggs, some vegetables and some fruits. Sure, I know what you’re thinking, this isn’t so bad. But wait, uh, hello bread, dairy, all things sugar?! The success of this caveman diet rests on the assertion that today’s humans are genetically programmed to have a diet most like our ancestors’.

Call me crazy, but I think 10,000 years have equipped us to handle a cupcake or two in our lifetime.

“Cleanse” diets seem to be all the rage, too. In fact two of my friends decided to try out the “Master Cleanse” and said that it would be a “great way to detox” and that they’d be “pure” in no time.

I couldn’t help but laugh because lemon juice, cayenne pepper and a little maple syrup for 10 days straight (apparently some people do this for more than 30 days) is just going to make me wonder when I can gorge myself on real food and real lemonade, please and thank you.

If you think liquid diets are bad, wait until you hear about the “Imagine Diet,” A year ago, New York Times columnist John Tierney provided positive evidence for, “a form of mental dieting — I think, therefore I’m full.” Yikes, thinking does not make me full ­— it actually makes me hungrier.

Notice that some of these diets don’t even mention physical fitness: They focus on food, or lack thereof, as a means to “get healthy.”

It doesn’t have to be hard to eat the things you like; it really is all about moderation and a dash of discipline. It’s easier (and yummier) to eat a little bit of everything than to cut out whole sections of the food pyramid (no less, because some model-turned-author told you to).

_Nishat is a senior in LAS._