HAS there ever been a generation in the history of the world that was more obsessed with what they eat than this current crop of 20- 40-year old’s. OMG! Sugar is the latest arch villain apparently causing your brain to focus entirely on sugar and be unable to think. It's my son and his friends' theory that sugar in the diet explains the entire mess the world is in today. But they want food labeled with the content of extra sugar as opposed to natural sugar. I guess they never saw the label 'unsweetened'.

My son considers me an alcoholic if I have one glass of wine. (Sugar) Eating bread is the road to perdition (carbs turn into sugar), even green vegetables have, HORRORS!!! sugar. No, not meat, too? But, apparently that juicy steak is loaded with sugar. I'm at a loss to know what to eat.

But I am old and I, the gourmet cook, have fought the battle of the ignorant eater before. I never surrender my joy of eating to food fear. When they said butter is bad for your cholesterol, I said phooey! Every vegetable in the world tastes better with a bit of butter. And in my day, eating vegetables was considered good for you. Today, the question is does the goodness of fiber undo the badness of sugar. Well, go ahead, give up cauliflower and Brussel Sprouts and say it's because of the sugar. Your mother knows the truth.

However, recently, they discovered that butter is high in Vitamin D, which is a miracle vitamin that prevents cancer and does so many other great things. No one has said to me, wow, you were right. Butter is so cool and saves lives and makes even broccoli taste great. No. Do I get funding from the government to continue my defense of good eating? No sir. And that, my friends, is a great injustice. 

I held out for olive oil when everybody was going on about the saturated fat and advising a switch to canola oil. Cook without olive oil? Good God in Heaven, is the world ending? What's the matter with you people. If eating olive oil kills you, I'd rather be dead. Well, then two decades or so later, they discover that cholesterol has nothing to do with heart attacks and may in fact be good for you. Score another one for MOI! Has the Nobel Prize committee called yet to acknowledge that I and I alone stood for food sanity?

Eggs were another victim of the cholesterol hysteria. But eggs are a fighting issue with me. Not only do I require them for everything from poached, fricassee, soufflé, meringue, and plain old scrambled, not getting my eggs is something that I might actually start an armed insurrection over. Rebellion in aisle three. Woman trashing the phony Egg Beaters in the fridge. Eggs. Vitamin D. Get your facts straight, or just give in and eat what tastes good. If it's well cooked, well-seasoned and eaten without guilt, it's going to be much better for you than some health food served with a heaping dose of guilt and angst.

I have braved the scornful sneers as I loaded my supermarket cart with the quart size heavy cream and two dozen eggs to make honest to goodness eggnog. It’s the perfect thing to have at Christmas with your fruitcake. I am willing to concede that I am the sole human being on earth who loves fruitcake. But everyone loves eggnog and real whipped cream and homemade butter cookies. And both are full of just tons of Vitamin D,

If you have any influence, please call the Pulitzer people or those crazy Norwegians and tell them if they want to do the right thing with their precious Nobel prize, (and really, if it weren't for Alfred and his dynamite, who would even have heard of Norway, I ask you?) I am here waiting to be recognized for standing tall against food superstition and preparing tasty dishes for all and sundry. I feel that my acts of supermarket heroism have been a "great benefit to mankind” or would be if only anybody ever listened to me. But of course, they're too busy scarfing down my six-egg sponge cake topped with boiled egg white icing. Drat.