When pizza is not pizza

Diet, definition one, taken from "The Concise Macquarie Dictionary": an intransitive verb meaning "to select or limit the food one eats to improve one's physical condition or lose weight."\nDiet, definition two, taken from American pop culture: to neurotically refrain from random food items with little benefit to overall health.\nAmerica is absolutely amazing in this regard. Every week, it seems some food is good for you while some other food is suddenly the health equivalent of Satan. Even the rather benign egg caused quite a stir when it triumphantly returned from the nutritional blacklist a few years ago.\nI once read a report from a reputable source claiming vitamin C had no nutritional benefit and, conversely, was quite effective at hardening the arteries. This is after centuries of using o.j. to chase away colds! What's depressing is I'm sure somebody swore off the dastardly juice the day that report came out.\nWe are currently anti-carbohydrate, and everybody is jumping on the band wagon. From Subway to Burger King, restaurants now offer menu items that are "Atkins Approved." I've been to hamburger shops where they offer to wrap your greasy, grade F, cheese-coated meat in a sheaf of lettuce in order to make it healthier. Does anybody see the break in logic on this one?\nIn waging this healthy-marketing war, one restaurant in particular has taken the food service industry down to an all-time low. Drum roll please …\nI give to you the one, and hopefully the only, Donatos No Dough Pizza! This unique cuisine advertised as a pizza costs more than a pizza and resembles a baked salad.\n"This new pizza gives low carb dieters more of what they really want," www.donatos.com explains. "Donatos famous Edge-to-Edge toppings without the dough!"\nWhich begs the question, where is the edge of a no-dough pizza?\nSilliness aside, eating a doughless pizza is not going to do anything for your pants size. Why? Because later on that night, your stomach will realize it didn't have anything substantial for dinner, and you'll end up with a tub of ice cream right before going to bed. \nLet's refer back to the Macquarie for a much better idea. "Select and limit the food you eat" does not mean hiding from bread. It means don't eat at McDonalds every day, regardless of the menu item, and don't supersize it for an extra 59 cents. As my T'ai Chi instructor says at the end of every class, "Do eat some fresh food, do drink plenty of water and do try and get some sleep."\nThe other fundamental flaw in all this is we do not burn off the food we take in, yeasty shell or not. From what I can tell, the main complaint with carbohydrates is they are high in energy. And, if one consumes more carbohydrates than one uses, the excess carbs convert into fat for storage.\nOf course, there are two ways to balance energy intake and energy output. The first is this idea of lowering your energy intake to meet your minimal needs. The second, which I advocate, is raising the level of exercise instead.\nThe weather is wonderful outside, and simply walking around will do you loads of good. I'm specifically admonishing the people who take the elevator to the fourth floor of Ballantine Hall while holding a diet Coke and walk back down to the third floor. I'm giving equal criticism to the people who ride the campus express from outside the Indiana Memorial Union to all the way up the street to the Auditorium.\nStand up, move your legs and take some pizza with you!