I’m so glad we live in a time when research on nutrition and health is being constantly updated and is widely available. As I write this, I am reminded that today is the 5^th anniversary of my mother’s death from malignant melanoma. I remember that many years ago, she avidly read books on nutrition by Adele Davis and put into practice the information she found there. She was a smart woman, but much of the information she had to work with was partial or even wrong.

Compared to today, very little was known in the 60’s and 70’s about health, metabolism and diet, so each new product introduced by the growing food industry was heralded as better, not only in terms of convenience but health as well. We had "enriched" bread and bakery products and "wonderfully unsaturated" margarines and vegetable oils promoted endlessly in various media. We had no idea that the "research" done on these products was often flawed or even deliberately falsified to convince the public that manmade foods were as good as or better than their natural counterparts.

Today, we have access to overwhelming amounts of information and our biggest challenge is sifting through it all to discern truth from fiction. If I had known 6 years ago what I have learned in the past few years about health, my mother might be alive today.

Since I read many books on diet and nutrition and spend time researching health information on various websites, I run into a lot of inconsistencies. One study or author may present information that sounds logical and feasible but the next author or study may make a believable case for the exact opposite. Often one needs to dig deeply into the philosophy and motives of the researcher or author to see if there is bias or deliberate misrepresentation in his or her arguments. In addition, one needs to compare the findings of a study to one’s own life experiences and see if indeed they coincide with our personal reality.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the conflicting information on body weight, diet and health. Everyone seems to agree that there are more overweight people around than there used to be, but the theories as to why or what should be done about it vary greatly.

Different "authorities", be they medical school graduates or lay people, have come up with numerous theories and diets to match. We have the South Beach Diet, the Atkins Diet, the Low Fat Diet, the Vegetarian Diet, the Vegan Diet, the Whole Grain Diet, the No Grain Diet, the Paleolithic Diet, the Blood Type Diet, the Metabolic Type Diet, etc., etc. Each has its group of adherents and proponents who swear by their particular diet and scoff at all others.

So what are we to believe? If all these "experts" can’t agree, how do ordinary people know whether the diets they begin with such hope and conviction will actually give them the results they are looking for? With so many choices out there, how do we choose?

I used to think that as long as I stayed thin, I was healthy. I conveniently ignored tell tale signs of less than ideal health like fatigue, bloating, gas, allergies, low blood pressure, pale skin, falling hair, and lack of endurance. I convinced myself that needing a nap in the afternoon to get through the day was normal. I never was a big eater, but over time, I ate less and less, because food just didn’t agree with me. I often felt worse after eating than before. I kept eliminating one food after another, till there wasn’t a lot left I could eat without feeling tired and bloated. My 5’5"+ body weighed as little as 102 pounds at one point.