For many people, nutrition has become more religion than science, complete with its own slew of false prophets citing quasi-facts or total myths as gospel. But a proper diet is not one of self-deprivation and starvation, advises New York Times columnist Jane Brody.

As a medical and science writer for more than three decades, Ms. Brody bears witness to the confusion that has gripped the public regarding proper eating habits. The author of several books on health and nutrition, she was the distinguished guest speaker at the annual spring meeting of the Friends of the Center for Human Nutrition.

She acknowledged that the confusion is rooted in the fact that nutrition science is in a constant state of flux. Yet separating fact from fiction could sort out the confusion. She cited the latest diet crazes: the Atkins Diet and the Zone Diet.

"After hearing for three decades that a low-fat, high carbohydrate diet is the best way to achieve and maintain a healthy weight and a normal cholesterol level, the weight-loss scheme most popular at the moment consists of all the steak, eggs, butter and cream that you could possibly eat," she said. "It reports to knock off unwanted pounds and dramatically lower blood cholesterol. But please, before you adopt this scheme, you should know where it originated. This diet was invented in the 1860s by a London undertaker, who was perhaps trying to drum up some extra business." You can lose weight on any diet that restricts the kind of food you eat, she said.

"Of course you lose weight on this high-meat, high-fat diet because you can't eat bread, cake, candy, bagels, cookies, ice cream or scones -- all of those low-fiber, high-sugar, high-calorie carbohydrate foods that people tend to eat too much of. But also on this diet, you cannot eat potatoes, rice, pasta, oatmeal, dry cereal, carrots or fruit -- foods also deemed too high in starch and sugar by the purveyors of this seriously skewed and unwholesome diet."

There are no long-term studies on the success of such diets. Ms. Brody said she bets it has no better results that any other diet -- that 90 percent of dieters regain their weight. "Why? Because a diet is something you go on to go off," she said. "You go off the diet, and you go back to eating the things that made you fat in the first place.

"The secret to lasting weight control is not a diet. It's an eating and exercise management plan that you go on and stay on for the rest of your life."Her advice: Change just one meal a week or one meal every two weeks, and by the end of the year you'll have a completely new way of eating and be less likely to miss the old way and to lapse back into it.