Dr. Sanford Siegal developed the concept of a diet based on a hunger-controlling food in the early 1970s while writing a book about substances in food that are particularly satisfying of hunger. Based on his research, he engineered a formula to curb hunger and enable his patients to stick to the low-calorie diet that he advocates. After several years of experimenting in his family's kitchen, Dr. Siegal produced a particular mixture of amino acids that resulted from the combination of certain food substances. He baked his formula into a cookie and gave it to a few patients. Dr. Siegal's COOKIE DIET?® was an overnight success. Shortly thereafter, he created his shake mixes which, when added to water and ice in a blender, produce a cool, hunger-controlling beverage. By the mid-1980s, his Miami-based medical practice had grown to include 14 clinics and he was supplying his cookies and shakes to hundreds of other physicians throughout North America.

In 2007, Dr. Siegal and his son, Matthew Siegal, the company's CEO, began offering their cookies, shake mixes, and other products to the general public through wwwokieDiet (which has more than 116,000 members) and retailers, including GNC, Walgreens, and Samsclub.

Although knockoff products have recently appeared, Dr. Siegal's cookie-based diet is recognized as the original, and he continues to command a nearly 100 percent share of voice in the press.

In June 2009, Dr. Siegal published his latest book, Dr. Siegal's Cookie Diet Book: How a Doctor and His Cookie Helped 500,000 People Lose Weight Fast (2009, Hyde Park Publishing Ltd., 320 pages, ISBN 978-0-9822728-3-19999), which is available at Amazon, BN, Barnes & Noble stores, and Walgreens.

SOURCE Dr. Siegal's COOKIE DIET (CookieDiet)