Oprah's done it again.

Our favorite diet guru since Jack LaLanne is now saying it's OK to eat carbs.Two weeks ago, Oprah confided on TV she lost 26 pounds while eating bread daily.Let's assume, of course, that you can actually "confide" something on national television.But let's not be naive. Her real motivation is to promote a commercial diet program in which she's a major stockholder.Still, her point might be well taken.It's possible to eat carbs and yet maintain a healthy weight.It's more a matter of moderation, not dieting.Nutritionists say yo-yo diets don't work. But healthy eating habits do.Oprah, of course, consults with her personal chef.The rest of us don't do that for obvious reasons.We need to learn to make our own food choices.We're in the habit of eating food staples such as pasta, beef, chicken, cheese and butter.At one point or another, the consensus was that these items were bad for us, except maybe for chicken.I'm not quite sure because the trends and opinions seem to change weekly.Chicken manages to stay above the fray and is generally regarded as a healthy white meat.We rely heavily on it.In fact, chicken might be the only animal we eat before it's born and after it's dead.Somehow, that sounds disgusting, so let's not discuss it. Sorry I brought it up.As for butter, that's an entirely confusing dilemma.Butter started out as being good.Back in the '50s, butter was part of a healthy diet which included generous amounts of dairy to build strong bones.A decade or so later, butter became bad, supplanted by some kind of chemical called margarine.But now margarine is bad. Old-fashioned butter is good again, in moderation.Olive oil is even better and might just keep folks as skinny as Popeye's girlfriend. That's fun to think about, especially in this age when food-based humor needs to be straightforward and gluten-free.Truthfully, I gave up on healthy cooking because the recipes are impossible.They always start with instructions like this: "Go to your local grocer and pick up ginger-soaked tofu, sun-dried soybean root, and lactose-free goat milk."Yes, of course. Right away.As for breakfast, a healthy one is next to impossible.We're supposed to eat fiber, but fiber is never as tasty as sugarcoated Fruity Flakes, which is what we really want.Sometimes eating a high-fiber breakfast is like chomping on foam insulation to start your day.But to try to be healthy, we buy a high-fiber cereal of oatmeal, wheat germ and stuff that looks like sawdust. Then we pour over it zero percent milk, or basically, chalk water.The end result is a paste better used for a papier-mache hobby.For lunch, experts might advise to eat lots of celery, carrots and broccoli, or essentially, rabbit food.But rabbits don't really live long, so that's a good enough reason to steer away.Most of us nonrabbits prefer potato chips.Since potatoes are grown in the garden, I'm wondering if potato chips qualify as a salad? Guess I'll discuss it with my personal chef, when I'm rich enough to hire one.Sometimes my supper doesn't come from the produce section. It comes from Pizza Hut, where there's always a personal pan with my name on it.I thoroughly enjoy a thick crust soaked in oil. I don't even care if it's motor oil as long as it tastes good.And that's the bottom line.In all of this healthy food hype, don't forget how to enjoy eating.It's all about the taste buds.Don't worry about fad diets. Most diets don't work. And ones that do only work temporarily.Healthy, sensible eating is what matters, along with moderation and exercise.It's not the bad thing you do once in a while that will hurt you; what you need to be afraid of is the bad thing you do all of the time.So go ahead and seek flavor.Starkist doesn't want tuna with good taste. Starkist wants tuna that tastes good.