BY JULIE SEYLER

For years and years I battled my weight.

All food choices were based on calories, but now calorie count no longer drives the game. These days, it’s about eating politically correct. I recently went to a business lunch at a restaurant known for its steak with four colleagues. Three ordered salmon. These middle-aged men were limiting their beef intake due to the artery-clogging potential of the medium.

I felt guilty ordering my rare filet mignon, but completely gratified when I noticed that each salmon- eater thought nothing of piling on the mashed potatoes, which no doubt were slathered in butter! (Although the latest of the latest studies came out with a report that maybe red meat is not so bad for you after all.)

Whatever. Because if arteries, filled with free-floating globules that cause clog ups, aren’t torturing your brain, there’s always wheat to worry about. It seems nothing is as bad for you as food made with the white stuff. As a carbo-queen, and lover of pasta not made with rice, spelt or ancient whole grains, I have reconsidered eating spaghetti for breakfast. As much as I love slurping up a tangled mass of pasta coated with olive oil, lemon, pepperocini, salt, and parmesan cheese at 7 a.m., these days, that image is replaced with a dance of numbers that dictate soaring blood glucose levels. I nobly turn my attention to a bowl of protein-rich and calcium-studded yogurt. (Unlike Lois, I cannot imagine eating sardines topped with avocados, olives, and mayo for breakfast.)

Cheese! I love cheese, but Geez Louise, the fat that courses through a melting brie is enough to freeze the veins.

Then there’s the new culprit in town: GLUTEN. It’s the devil behind every ache, joint pain and an inert libido. But don’t fear. The options for gluten-free and tasteless dough just keep expanding.

Honestly, the scientific evidence behind a healthy heart is destroying the lustful pleasure of food. A prime rib on the bone with a baked potato on the side drowning in a pool of butter and sour cream has always been a decadent treat, now it’s decadent, and potentially murderous.