I'm confused - and I'm sure I'm not the only one.  Back in my youth food was not as perplexing as it is now.  Breakfast was pancakes & sausage with syrup.  Lunch was probably mac & cheese. For dinner Mom would pop a roast out of the oven and set it by the bowl of steaming carrots and potatoes and we were eating health.  Apparently that is sooo 1970's.

Trying to eat healthy now is considerably more bewildering. We have all been told sugar is bad, but so is the artificial sweetener.  Lately I'm seeing advertising campaigns touting that "natural cane sugar" is used - implying that its' good, but corn syrup is still bad. Protein is good, unless its red meat, then it's bad.  Eggs are a great source of protein, but the cholesterol makes them bad. Dairy is all over the board... Milk is good for you, but not whole milk. Some say 2% is too much, but skim milk is so watery. Cheese is good...no cheese is bad. String cheese - that's considered good. Soft cheese from a box is bad. Yogurt is also considered good for you, but sour cream and (sigh) whipped cream are bad. Starches are a huge no no...so out go potatoes & breads, but certain rice's are considered good. Nuts are good for you, unless they're peanuts - those are bad. Even fruit can't catch a break. One nutritional guide I read said berries are good, but oranges & pineapples are bad. Huh? 

I get that buying dinner from the vending machine isn't a good idea and I've gotten pretty good at eating only half of what I'm served at my favorite restaurants. What leaves me scratching my head is which nutritional guide to follow for my day to day diet.  Is it the one that totally wipes out every white food in the cupboard? Or is it the one that declares you need to avoid anything with a high fat content?  Maybe the one that says eat only raw foods?  Or the one that tells you to make soup out of every veggie in the garden.  I give up.

There is a never ending stream of conflicting information regarding what is the "right" thing to eat. Every time I turn on the TV I'm told that yesterdays healthy food is about to kill me today.  Or the food that was good, then thought to be bad, really IS good for us. Is it any wonder I'm confused?

This past Christmas I decided to surprise Mom at the family dinner by using the set of Depression glass plates she had given me the year before.  I carefully unpacked the salad plates from the box and went digging around for the dinner plates.  It took me a while for the light bulb to go on. Uh...those WERE the dinner plates.  They nestle quite nicely inside the rim of the current dinner plates that I use. Alrighty then...the real problem is now clear - and a plan starts to take root.

I've decided to throw out all of the "expert" theories and eat what I like. I have decided to use the Depression glass more. If my dinner doesn't fit on that plate, I probably don't need it.  The only thing that I've heard time and time again that actually makes sense is "portion control".  So if I chunk up that 1 pound bar of dark chocolate, and it fits on the Depression glass plate....is it still considered "healthy"?