Nutritionist Bonnie Minsky carries around a prop with her when she has speaking engagements: a cupcake. You wouldn't think that a dietitian would want to have a treat like this around her, especially since it is the processed, packed-in-plastic type of snack cake, but she uses it to make a point about the dangers of trans fats. You see, the Hostess cupcake that she carries is 25 years old. The plastic packaging didn't hold up too well, nor did the frosting, but the cake itself appears to be relatively undamaged.

The cake was intended to be an experiment from the beginning. She purchased the cake in 1981 and "let it site for a few months" to see what would happen. She also purchased an apple at the same time. Of course, the apple began to decompose in fairly short order, but nothing happened to the cupcake. She attributed the lack of change to the presence of partially hydrogenated oil - a.k.a. trans fats - because "the [other] ingredients in the cupcake are all real."

Minsky thinks that the recent moves in Chicago and New York, as well as other cities and countries around the world, to ban trans fats are a good idea. And after seeing what they can do to a cupcake, even if there is no definitive answer about what they do to your body, it doesn't seem like such a bad idea.

Martin's Food Market, at their new location in Eldersburg, Md, is adding an unusual new type of employee to its staff: a nutritionist. The nutritionist will be available to shoppers, to help guide them through the aisles and make good food choices. She will also be able to answer general questions about health and wellness and customers can make one-on-one appointments with her for more in depth nutritional planning. It's not quite clear whether there will be a fee for the services of the nutritionist, although it seems more likely that there would be one for the in-depth appointments than the one-off questions of shoppers.

The nutritionist could point out that baked chips are a healthier alternative to regular ones, and help consumers read the labels so they know what they're getting. While many consumers already know what they should be eating, or what the healthier choices are, the nutritionist can provide the nudge that is needed to take that option.

The only reason for store to keep a nutritionist is to please the customers, since the nutritionist would inevitable steer people away from more processed, less healthful foods, which could hurt sales of those items. But if shoppers are coming in to meet with her or because they have gotten recommendations in the past, a loss of junk food sales wouldn't hurt the store. So the real question here is, would you take advantage of such a service if it was available at your local grocery store?

Having not even met you, let me say this: you don't eat enough vegetables. Yeah, sure you eat loads of salads -- if you call a handful of watery lettuce dipped in oil a "salad" -- but according to the health professionals, you need three to twelve cups of broccoli and spinach a day just to be "average!" Those damned smug holistic nutritionists! Do you think even they eat that much? Do you think they spend half their day holding their nose and quaffing down carefully measured cuploads of soggy broccoli? And no, a tofu burger doesn't count as vegetables. And yes, I too hate even thinking about satisfying my hunger at the diner with a side order of sautéed spinach when everyone else is having cheese fries.

Don't think that slamming one of these $3 green juices at the deli is going to satisfy that measuring cup-crazed nutritionist in the back of your mind. And here's something else: raw fresh vegetables and fresh fruit don't mix. Eat them at the same time and you are asking for trouble… gastric, gaseous trouble. I remember temping at this ad agency about ten years ago; it was lunch time and I was about to eat my random assemblage from the Chinese salad bar deli next door: fresh strawberries, big vegetarian sushi roll, and fresh, raw broccoli. A visiting hippie chick friend of mine, the sort who has read Diet for a New America all the way through, gave me a look of concern as she and my co-worker went out to lunch. When they came back she took one look at my pale, agonized, bloated face and told me she had been worried about my mixing all through her lunch, and that I should never mix raw fruit and vegetables in the same meal.

She was a hippie nutritionist chick, and she knew.

The secret to weight loss? Grapefruits. Eliminating white sugar. Raw foods. Try again: how about counting calories?

The oldest and tired-est of all weight loss programs, the trusty calorie counter, is the way to go, says nutritionist LouAnn Frisch, interviewed in yesterday's Oregonian. "I don't care what the diet says; weight loss comes down to counting calories. If you want to lose a pound a week, subtract 500 calories from what it takes to maintain your current weight." Multiply your weight, in pounds, by 13, and you'll get the maintenance number.

Good thing I don't want to lose weight - I'd be only eating 1,100 calories a day. That's five slices of Milton's Whole Grain Bread, four eggs, and a bowl of low-fat split pea soup (according to Frisch's recommendations). I wouldn't even have room for milk in my coffee.