Remember when food was just something we ate? Now everything on our plates and in our pantries is a cause of or cure for cancer. It’s enough to make you sick, if your diet isn’t doing so already.

This AP headline says it all: “Marketers Use Disease to Sell Food.” Give us your diabetic, your obese, your cholesterol-challenged; our foods will fix what ails you.

Manufacturers of tomato-based products had hoped to be the next Quaker Oats, which won permission from the FDA in 1997 to claim that oatmeal may reduce the risk of heart disease. The current Quaker Oats container sports a big banner proclaiming “Oatmeal Helps Remove Cholesterol!”

But the FDA determined yesterday that the evidence linking lycopene, a naturally occurring chemical in tomatoes, with a reduction in certain cancers is just too sketchy. It will, however, permit companies such as Heinz to label their products as follows:

“Very limited and preliminary scientific research suggests that eating one-half to one cup of tomatoes and/or tomato sauce a week may reduce the risk of prostate cancer. FDA concludes that there is little scientific evidence supporting this claim.”

Hard to hear any ka-ching in that ringing endorsement.