Eating, Dieting and Angst
By Teresa K. Flatley

I went out to lunch the other day with a friend only to face menu anxiety. Not having checked in with the Food Police that morning, I was at a loss as to what I could eat without fear of retribution to my body and soul.

Hamburger? No way, ever again. Fish? Maybe, but since I don't know where these actual fish had been, I had to pass. Coffee? Definitely not. Salad? OK, but only with a teaspoon of see-through dressing on the side.

If you spend any time at all reading newspapers and magazines or watching the news, you know what we nutritionally-challenged humans are up against: Daily revelations of what is not good for us to eat.

Nothing is sacred anymore from the piercing analysis of food experts and their compulsion to get the word out to us whether we want to hear it or not.

Today, it's come down to whether we should actually eat at all. Even the stuff they told us was OK yesterday, is not OK today. They give and they take away, leaving very little nutrition available and lots of angst. (Remember the debates: "Eggs: yes or no?" or "Which is healthier: margarine or butter?" Sadly, no one knows.)

The latest volley in this battle against the bulge was lobbed when I read that a low fat diet -- even for a short amount of time -- can promote osteoporosis.

But isn't a low-fat diet The Goal? The brass ring? Oprah's legacy?

I'm guessing that all of us have embarked on a low fat diet -- for at least a short time -- in the recent past. Now we are faced with the fallout from that seemingly responsible choice: poor bone density and a propensity to fall and break parts of our bodies.

No one ever accused kielbasa and nachos of lightening our bones so who's to say we shouldn't have been eating them all along? No matter that they can cause our arteries to clog up quicker than a tunnel in a rainstorm. Strong bones or clogged arteries? Pick your poison.

Every once in a millennium the experts do mention the word "moderation" as a livable solution to all this conflict, but no sooner do you seize upon that, then they begin to equivocate:

"Yes, you can have the occasional piece of chocolate or order of french fries. But we can't promise that by imbibing them you won't completely undermine any other health gains (read that: pain and suffering) you've experienced recently. What we can promise is that you will feel guilty -- very guilty -- after you've eaten your moderate food."

And we do, we really do. Which makes eating in moderation no fun at all.

This food thing is a tough nut to crack, that's for sure (and even though nuts have high fiber and sometimes the good kind of fat, you can't have them either.)

What to do? Fire the Food Police or at least stop listening to them? Maybe, except another study reports that obesity can cut short your life. And since too many Americans fall into that category or are on the slippery slopes to it, we just can't be carefree about what we eat either. And, on the other end of the scale, the more we see how young actresses in Hollywood are starving themselves to become waif-thin to achieve society's vision of beauty, we simply can't allow that to happen either.

Maybe the trick is to do what makes sense -- good, common sense -- at the moment. Make healthy choices whenever possible. Drive directly past those fast-food eateries on the way home. Eat as many vegetables and fruits in a day as you can.

And when it's your birthday and you want a piece of birthday cake, go for it. But don't even think you can eat all the leftover cake without reprisals. The Food Police know where you live.