THE US government has issued its first diet guidelines for six years, and the media are stuffed yet again with articles and advice about America's twin national obsessions, food and dieting.
It is a paradox that people here get more dietary advice than anywhere else in the world, yet they continue to grow fatter. One in three Americans is officially classified as overweight to the point of obesity, up from a quarter in the 1970s, and 300,000 die from weight related diseases each year.
The supermarket shelves groan with artificial foods, such as artificial sugar, diet Coke, chemical creams, sugar free sweets and cheese flee cheese. Yet the shopper who snaps these up is just as likely to drop by a Hardee's on the way home for a Big Hardee hamburger with cheese, containing 690 calories, a third of the recommended daily intake.
Or the typical American may sit down to an evening meal such as that served recently by chef John Folse to a private party of Procter & Gamble executives in a Baton Rouge restaurant: thick, tasty seafood gumbo, delicious sauteed duck breast, sauteed speckled trout dripping in oil, fried soft shell crawfish, salad with vinaigrette dressing and scrumptious Mardi Gras cake.
More about this particular meal anon. Meanwhile, what is Uncle Sam advising people to eat? A varied diet, low in fat and cholesterol, with alcohol salt sugar and sodium only in moderation.
It took six years for the Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services to come up with this prescription, which appears little different from before with one important qualification.
The 1990 guidelines suggested it was OK for Americans to gain a little weight as they grow older.
No longer. People should feel guilty again at putting on a few pounds in middle age, the new report says.
Excess pounds must be shed at all ages, though Health Secretary Donna Shalala advises "moderation rather than marathons" to achieve the desired body streamlining.
According to the old rules, a 5ft 6in woman should weigh a maximum of 155lb if under 34, and 167lb if older. The federal government has now set the maximum weight at 155lb for all women of this height.
For a 5ft 11in man, it was OK until this week to weigh up to 94lb if over 34; men of all ages this tall are now advised to slay under 179lb.
And for the first time the guidelines acknowledge a vegetarian diet as an acceptable alternative, so long as it is supplemented with vitamin B12, vitamin D and calcium.
But nothing, it seems, will change the eating habits of the vast majority of Americans, who are exposed daily in fast food joints and shopping mall food courts to huge, juicy hamburgers, cheese covered pizzas, sticky cinnamon rolls, plate size chocolate chip cookies and pound weight brownies.
The only answer, it seems, is to make all these fatty foods relatively harmless. Which isn't so far fetched a notion if a new fake cooking oil gets the go ahead from the US Food and Drug Administration this month.
Which brings us back to the apparent heart attack on a plate served to the Procter & Gamble executives in Baton Rouge. This was in fact a low fat meal, cooked with the synthetic oil, called olestra, the first ever "fat free fat", as Time magazine called it in a cover story this week.
Olestra can take the guilt out of gorging. It tastes like corn oil and doesn't break down in frying, like other artificial oils, but it doesn't clog the arteries. It reduces the calories in a typical slice of chocolate cake from 250 to 175.
The ingredient has been pioneered by Procter & Gamble at a cost of $200 million and will be marketed soon if approval comes, through.
As it could become a staple in the diets of millions of Americans it will form one third the weight of a typical potato crisp - the FDA commissioner David Kessler is taking his time reaching a decision, though government scientists are enthusiastic.
The disadvantages are that no one really is sure of the health side effects of large amounts of olestra. What is known is that it won't necessarily make America a more pleasant place to live and eat its side effects can include looser bowels and increased flatulence. Ozone layer, watch out!