Niki Bezzant: Diet Council of 1966

The thing that interests me the most about this, is the diet advice, which is actually a low carb diet

Cutting carbs is "the best of the modern methods", say the authors, and their meal plan lists most foods containing carbohydrates in a complicated system of points,

Meat of any kind (including canned meat, bacon, poultry, offal, liver sausage) can be consumed freely, just like aspic, almonds, pickles and salt. Half a pint of milk should be eaten every day.

Apart from the exercise equipment and scenic food, however, this is not very different from many modern low carb diets

in the world of diets , nothing is really new. Just as in fashion, food trends come and go, and they tend to borrow from the past, even offering a new revolutionary science.

It makes me smile to see supporters of some low-carb diets find something new. The fact is, we have heard almost everything before. We just tend to forget, and when it starts again, like the goldfish, we are newly excited.

This does not mean that the science of nutrition is not progressing. It is widely recognized now that not all carbohydrates are equal; that there are certain foods (refined, white) containing carbohydrates, it would be better never to eat again, and that many of us would probably do well to eat less carbohydrates than we do. could have in the past.

But the idea that this one thing – eat low carb, or the keto diet, or low in carbohydrates / fat, or any other variation of current – is the answer, the one and only way to eating that will save us all, is clearly flawed

And even when they say "This is not a diet, it's a lifestyle!", We should know a diet when we see one .

I googled "carbophobia" to see what I could find about the current fear of potatoes and pasta. What I got, surprisingly, was a book of this name, written in 2005, when the Atkins diet (another low-carb diet) was at its peak. The book was pestering against the low-carb trend. It has sold well at the time, but the lasting impact seems negligible.

In nutrition, things are never really so black and white. Nutritionists now generally recognize that a well-planned and plant-based carb diet will work well for some people. But this is by no means the only way to eat to be healthy.

• Niki Bezzant is Editor-in-Chief of the Healthy Food Guide www.healthyfood.co.nz