A broadside for diet beliefs: Moderation is the sanest response

ANYONE trying to follow a good, healthy diet, one based on sensibly-sized portions of good food, must regularly revise their idea of what constitutes good food and diet.

The battleground around food choices is as much about fashion as it is health or sustenance. It’s as much about show business as it is the business of eating healthily. Sometimes it’s difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, the informed, peer- reviewed conclusions from the snake-oil salesman’s pitch.

The latest reports from Britain’s National Obesity Forum and the Public Health Collaboration will not make it any easier to navigate conflicting report after conflicting report about fats, calories, the role of the food industry — sometimes hidden — in funding “research” and the integrity of some scientists. How a sensible, well-informed person can adjudicate on utterly confusing advice is as grand a mystery as the recipe for Coca-Cola.