People have long turned to Hollywood stars for diet ideas — it just hasn’t usually been the stars of “Jurassic Park.”
But TikTok user @sahmthingsup has inspired countless social media users to do just that. In an effort to get more greens into her diet, she came up with “dinosaur time” — an admittedly silly trick to ensure she’s eating vegetables without the need to prepare them.
She simply stands over the sink stuffing raw spinach into her mouth, downing it in one go much like an herbivore dinosaur might have done.
The TikToker told The Post that she started eating raw greens this way years ago when she was an athlete on a macronutrient-rich diet.
Though she enjoys salads, she finds that “they take a long time to prepare and an even longer time to eat” and the idea of eating a meal comprised primarily of greens wasn’t particularly “appetizing” either.
Then, in a Facebook group, she came across someone who “said that they were too overwhelmed with figuring out how to incorporate these greens into their meals so they just ate a handful of spinach over the sink.”
“I thought it was genius, so I decided to do the same and it worked beautifully,” she said.
Here’s the kicker: Since chomping into a handful of spinach “always conjured up the visual of the Brachiosaurus eating leaves from the tree in ‘Jurassic Park,’” she decided to name the practice “dinosaur time.”
She posted a video on TikTok illustrating the concept and it took off like a velociraptor.
The video received over 56,000 likes, with people thanking her for sharing this simple and potentially game-changing hack.
“You mean I don’t have to make elaborate salads and rage wash and chop and prep all the things each week? You may have just changed my life,” one user wrote.
“For added enrichment put on a dinosaur documentary,” another suggested. “It’s like having dinner with the girls!”
“Adulthood is just finding increasingly strange ways of tricking yourself into doing what you’re supposed to,” another commented — which, sadly, is true.
Since posting that initial video, @sahmthingsup has regularly shared follow-up videos of “dinosaur time” in which she answers some FAQs.
When asked if she likes to pretend that she’s a dinosaur — and, if so, what kind — while doing it, she replied that she thinks of herself as “a hungry dinosaur,” but likes to “channel Spike after he hatches out of his egg in ‘Land Before Time.’”
In a fun twist, the video caught the attention of Stu Krieger, who wrote the original screenplay for the beloved 1998 film. He chimed in to say, “This might be the best channeling of Spike I’ve ever seen.”
As fun as the concept is, she’d like to “emphasize that ‘dinosaur time’ is not a meal replacement, and should never exist as such.”
“It is intended to be a supplement to an existing meal to get your greens out of the way so you can enjoy the things you actually like to eat, whether that be a burger, a slice of pizza, a sandwich, tacos, etc.” she told The Post.
It’s “truly a ‘save the best for last’ mentality” that involves “adding food, not taking it away,” she added.
She likens “dinosaur time” to taking a vitamin shot, and says spinach can also be subbed with romaine or spring mix. “It makes me feel good about my food choices for the rest of the day,” she said.
She also notes that while “Dinosaur time” could be a good diet hack for a lot of people, it might not be right for you if:
- You tend to get kidney stones, as “some greens, and especially spinach, contain oxalates that bind to the calcium in your body and can form kidney stones.”
- You have IBS, Crohn’s, or other digestive issues, as raw vegetables can sometimes make these conditions worse.
- You have a hard time swallowing or severe sensory issues, because a “mouthful of greens is a lot to handle.”
For everyone else, “dinosaur time” could just be the “lazy” hack you’ve been looking for.
“I think ‘dinosaur time’ resonates with a lot of people because it’s accessible and has a low barrier to entry. It’s literally just grabbing a handful of greens and getting it down as fast as possible to get it out of the way,” she said.
“There is no pretense about having to enjoy it, and adding a fun name like ‘dinosaur time’ adds whimsy and puts you in the right mental space to get it done.”
This is especially true in a culture in which wellness trends can often seem kind of expensive and time-consuming.
“For a lot of people, the idea of making and eating a salad can be so daunting, and is also representative of a wellness industry and diet culture that feels exclusive, can be inaccessible, and has a history of creating unhealthy behaviors for a lot of people,” she said.
“For the majority of people out there, ‘dinosaur time’ is an easy solution to incorporate more greens, and it makes me happy that I can inspire people to do this.”
