2005: The year of the calorie

From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

Forget the diet wars of the past year, when low carb vs. low fat battled it out in supermarket aisles, weight-loss research and public opinion. This year, reports Cox News Service, it's back to basics: keeping track of how much you eat.

Calories have never gone away, of course. But in the giddy rush for low-fat brownies and low-carb potato chips, it's been easy to overlook an inconvenient fact: Sometimes those diet foods contain as many, or more, calories as the regular version. And when it comes to weight control, experts agree that calories -- not the proportion of fats, carbohydrates or protein in a diet -- are what really matter.

This year, calories won't be so easy to overlook: Labels will show calories for entire packages of certain snack foods and drinks that are realistically consumed as one serving. Also, new dietary guidelines, coming this winter, introduce the concept of discretionary calories -- what you're free to eat after satisfying nutrient requirements.