Uh-oh. I think I'm having an Emily Litella moment: what's all this fuss I hear about Loaf Hat Diets? Oh, never mind.

I'm referring, of course, to the bombshell published in today's Journal of the American Medical Association, which declares, essentially, that a low fat diet provides virtually no discernable advantage when it comes to reducing your risk of heart disease or cancer.

Lose weight while you sleep: it's the classic shady diet supplement pitch. But a recent Dutch study suggests that you could boost your metabolism and burn more calories around the clock simply by eating more lean protein. The study's participants, all women who were already at a healthy weight, found that increasing their protein intake to 30% of their daily calories enabled them to feel more satisfied and less hungry while consuming fewer calories than they would on a more typical diet consisting of about 10% protein.

How hard is it to make a healthy breakfast cereal that tastes good, too? Apparently, it's nearly impossible, according to a painstakingly researched expose in Wednesday's New York Times.

Intrepid food reporter and cookbook author Marian Burros sampled roughly a hundred varieties of “alternative” cereals, and rough is the operative word: according to Burros, many of them tasted like cardboard, or sawdust.

My friend Karen is a brilliant scholar of medieval literature, but she’s living in the dark ages when it comes to good nutrition. Often the sole occupants of her fridge are Little Schoolboy cookies and cans of Coca-Cola. Her pantry staples? Hot cocoa mix and Annie Chung noodles.

Karen’s excuse for not buying more fruits and vegetables is that they invariably spoil before she gets around to eating them.

Last year, the big thing in fruit beverages was pomegranate juice. Ads for Pom popped up everywhere, touting the benefits of the antioxidant-rich juice. There was even a dark chocolate-coated Pom flavored ice cream bar, a tasty but slightly schizophrenic blend of antioxidants and trans fats.

Pom's been riding high, but açai (“ah-sigh-ee”,) a berry that grows wild in the Brazilian rainforest, packs such a nutritional punch it could knock Pom off its perch. The Açai Supercharger smoothie is a hot seller at Jamba Juice bars, and açai juices from Sambazon and Bossa Nova are available in stores.

The long list of reasons to include soy-based foods in your diet may be a bit shorter, suddenly. The American Heart Association reviewed a decade of studies on the benefits of eating soy, and their findings cast doubt on the claim that soy can lower cholesterol. The AHA review also found no evidence that soy's isoflavones could ease the symptoms of menopause or prevent some forms of cancer.

There’s a showdown brewing at the bread corral, and it looks like Wonderbread’s days are numbered. The once-popular white bread, so pliable it could double for Play-Doh, had to file for bankruptcy protection last year; come January, you won’t even be able to find the famous dot-spotted loaf in Oregon and Washington supermarkets.

Maybe it’s time to revise the old adage, “all things in moderation,” because there are some things that apparently just aren’t good for you at all, even in modest quantities.

Artery-clogging trans fatty acids, aka partially hydrogenated oil, may sound like a lot of gobbledygook to you, but if you eat a lot of processed foods this cheap form of fat could cost you dearly. The National Academy of Science’s Institute of Medicine announced three years ago that there was no safe level of trans fat in the average diet.

Eating your way to good vision is more effective than taking supplements says December’s Berkeley Wellness Letter. While many nutrients promote eye health – yes, the beta carotene in carrots still tops the list—they are most effective when ingested through food.

This is a prime example of nutritional multitasking. The same diet that's said to promote heart health and prevent certain cancers is also linked to healthy eyes. Here's a summary of Berkeley's summary:

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.