Red Cross

They’re calling it the biggest disappearing act of all time. Penn Jillette, the larger half of Penn & Teller, is a lot smaller than he was. Last fall when high blood pressure sent him to the hospital, his doctor advised him to lose some of his 330 pounds. For fifteen days he ate nothing but potatoes – boiled, baked or raw – without butter, gravy, sour cream, or even salt and pepper. The next ten weeks Penn went hard-core vegan: no meat, no fish, no dairy, no sugar, no bread, no salt, and no oil. These days at 225 pounds he eats a lot of greens with vinegar, black or brown rice and fruit. His favorite treat is blueberries with cocoa powder.  “I could probably have a steak or doughnut, but I haven’t felt like it,” he reports. “When you feel as good as I feel, the temptation to go back to what you were doing is not very great.”