Our Real Eating Disorder: Fear of Delicious Fat

Crack down on industrial, fatty junk food, the deep-fried stuff that leads to obesity, and Ron Rosenbaum is with you. But keep your hands off his roast goose, his clotted cream, and his split-shank bone marrow, thank you very much. The "hysterical crusade against fat has become a veritable witch hunt," writes Rosenbaum in the Wall Street Journal. Food prudes often lump all types of fat together as evil—apparently ignorant of the fact that eating "basic, earthy, luxuriant fatty foods" makes you feel full and thus stop eating.

Roast goose, in particular, "is a supremely succulent, mind-alteringly flavorful fatty food," he writes. And "listening to the doctors on cable TV, you might think that it's better to cook up a batch of meth than to cook with butter." Ignore them, he advises, ticking off a list of his other fatty delights, from cheesecake made with heavy cream to Peking Duck. Keep the portions moderate and dig in. Click for the full column, in which Rosenbaum picks out the title of his book if his advice catches on: Eat Fat, Stay Slim. (More fat stories.)