There is, clearly and unquestionably (provided all relevant questions are assiduously ignored), just one thing wrong with our diets today (what day is it?) and that one thing is... I forget. Nuts!
No, it's definitely not nuts. Nuts are good -- we can all agree on that. Well, except for the most intractable DFPs (Dietary Fat Phobics). But those characters are, well, nuts. Enough with the nuts! It's definitely not nuts.
Maybe, and possibly, it was cut carbs? No, that can't be it. Kale is carbs and everyone loves kale -- even people who have no clue what kale is. Probably especially them.
Ah, I remember. Clearly, and most definitely, the one thing wrong with our diets is that we eat way too much meat.
Oh, wait. That was yesterday's news. Today's news, I meant to say, is that clearly and positively we eat too little meat.
Oh, wait. That was also yesterday's news. Well, it's today's news, too... again.
That must mean the potentially devastating effects of us all eating more meat on an over-crowded, over-heated, increasingly parched planet must also be yesterday's news. Oh, wait. Darn it. That's all today's news. Never mind. Who needs glaciers anyway? Of course, the ice comes in handy for soft drinks. But we know for sure we shouldn't be drinking that crud.
Ah, now I've got it. The one thing clearly and most assuredly wrong with our diets is sugar. No, too vague. Make that fructose. But then again, that's too specific. Back to sugar.
Except that when artificial sweeteners replace sugar, things don't seem to get much better. This is getting annoying.
I know! It's not sugar, it's wheat. Too limiting. It's all grains. Except that the healthiest populations on the planet eat whole grains. Now I'm getting fed up.
That's it. We are overfed. Except, of course, that calories decisively don't count. But for the fact that people who over consume even high-quality calories gain weight, and people who restrict even low-quality calories lose weight. Rats!
Never mind, rats won't help. They gain weight on excess calories, too. Moving on.
I guess I only know this (exactly, and approximately): The vendors keep dishing dietary epiphanies in bite-sized, moronic morsels almost every day. We never seem to see the elephant in the room and most of us can't seem to wait to get in line.
-fin
P.S. If you have had enough of this nonsense, here is what I think we truly do know about the basic care and feeding of Homo sapiens, both for losing weight, and finding health. Here is a batch of free programming to help you get there from here, and here is more information about the world's first nutrient profiling system -- now in over 2,000 supermarkets throughout the U.S. -- to correlate with both total chronic disease risk and all-cause mortality. And into the bargain, my latest book, Disease Proof, is potentially quite helpful, too. Unless you prefer pixie dust and moronic morsels du jour, in which case it won't help you at all. It's a moronic morsel-free zone, which, of course, will reliably keep it off the best-seller list. Not to worry -- I have a day job.
Dr. David L. Katz has authored three editions of a leading nutrition textbook. He is editor-in-chief of the peer-reviewed journal, Childhood Obesity, and President of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. He is the author of Disease Proof, and most recently, of the epic novel, reVision. He would have written a longer and more erudite column, but for some reason, he can't seem to stop throwing up...