I was waiting around the drugstore when I saw the cover article of Time was all about what to eat. Mostly same old, same old...except here and there rays peek through:

I didn't buy it, but here's the link:

http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101031020/story.html

(They describe a typical meal of pasta, iceberg lettuce salad, and low fat cookies as unhealthy.)

• Most "light" salad dressings are too heavy on sugar and salt and too light on nutrition. A better choice is a simple oil-and-vinegar dressing, which—although packed with calories—contains lots of heart-healthy mono-unsaturated fatty acids and no saturated fat.

• You're serving your family too many highly processed foods. The latest research shows that such foods won't keep them satisfied for very long and may make them hungrier in the long run.

• Having different kinds of cookies to choose from makes it more likely that your family will eat more cookies than they should. The fewer our choices, the less we eat.

Good fats do more than help protect the heart. They also seem to delay hunger pangs. "People on these high-starch, low-fat diets are often hungry soon after they eat. They would be more satisfied eating nuts or a salad with a full-fat dressing," says Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health and author of Eat, Drink and Be Healthy (Fireside; 2001). "And longer-term studies are showing that people tend to be able to control their weight better over the long run on a moderate or higher-fat diet than on a low-fat diet."

(This lady has it way off: )
"You don't want people to think trans fats are the only bad guys," says Alice Lichtenstein, a nutrition professor at Tufts University in Boston and a frequent spokeswoman for the American Heart Association. "If a cracker has 2% trans and 2% saturated fat, it's better than 7% saturated and 0% trans."

(Here's a crack in the wall: )
As if that weren't bad enough, it is becoming increasingly clear that some folks respond to highly refined foods differently than the rest of the population. All carbohydrates get broken down in the body into a simple sugar called glucose. This is a good thing, since glucose is the principal fuel that powers our bodies and brains. But about a quarter of American adults—some 50 million men and women—have trouble regulating their glucose levels. The hallmarks of this condition, which nutritionists now call metabolic syndrome, include a big waist (40 in. or more for men; 35 in. or more for women), high blood pressure (more than 130/85 mm Hg), a predisposition toward diabetes and troubling cholesterol levels in the blood.

(This "scientist" wins my Whacked Out award: )
"People forget they should be eating a nutritious, healthy diet for other reasons," says Barbara Rolls, professor of nutrition at Pennsylvania State University. "They go on these kooky weight-management fad diets, and they lose all sight of bone and cardiovascular health."

(Excuse me?????)

This problem of mistaken identity extends to quite a few of the foods we commonly call carbohydrates. First, a tiny rant about the word carbohydrate. When nutritionists first advised us to replace some of the fats in our diets with complex carbohydrates, what they had in mind was beans, fruits, leafy green vegetables and whole grains. What we loaded up on was pasta, white rice and French fries. Technically, we were following the rules, but by focusing on these highly processed or refined foods, we were missing out on a lot of antioxidants and other important nutrients. And we found out, much to the detriment of our waistlines, that it's a whole lot easier to overeat pasta, rice and potatoes than apples and broccoli.

(They say of potatoes that "though low in fat and full of vitamins, potatoes are mostly carbohydrates, which turn to sugar in your body" !!!!!)

Sounds like a bit of a turnaround to me. Same old shuck about calories, though, which always annoys me. Apparently the big coming thing is: PORTION CONTROL!

Which is fine, unless you are hungry.

I guess we can't expect them to do a *complete* 180. Oh well: it'll be worth waiting for.