We've heard of crazy diet plans before, but a new product is about to make dieting a bit messier. That's because Janet Merel wants to soil your appetite. Really. Her new product, Diet Dirt, is a can of an entirely edible dirt look-alike, made from wheat germ, charcoal (for color) and bitterex, a bitter-tasting substance used to break people from the habit of biting their nails.

Merel, a massage therapist, conceived of the product during an outing to Disney World, when after a days-long "eating frenzy," a friend complained about her weight while scarfing down a massive chocolate sundae. Impulsively, Merel threw some dirt on the ice cream. "It was a quick fix to an eating problem out of control," she says.

Alas, Diet Dirt "isn't really a diet product, just a wacky gag gift" that's not intended for human consumption says Merel. Although a spokesperson for Ross Productions, Dirt's distributor, says that the company will not release sales figures, "Truckloads of people are buying it," Merel says. "They just diet laughing."

--Anita Baskin