This from Verse Responder Leon Freilich:

Giving his long-tired right wing a rest, Timesman John Tierney does
right nutritionally by coining the term "health halo."  His column in
today’s Science Times considers why eating lite often adds unwanted
pounds.

Tierney
(gossip alert but so juicy), onetime lover of Maureen Down, visits Park
Slope, that "nutritionally correct neighborhood," and discovers that
even Food Coopers are misled by food labeled low in transfat and just
plain fat.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/02/science/02tier.html?_r=1&ref=science

The
twisted thinking, he suggests, goes: This lite muffin must be OK, even
if it’s the size of a Frisbee, so I’ll eat it all.  Fat-foolish,
because the mammoth muffin probably has twice or even three times the
calories of a small regular muffin (which tastes better to boot).

But if  calorie consciousness is not your bag of lite
snacks, Tierney passes along the European tactic: Forget about
nutrition; remember to keep the portions reasonable.

Not even Maureen Dowd would barbecue that import..