The low-fat diet, promoted by doctors for years as the cornerstone of a healthy lifestyle, has just been taken off science’s front burner and tossed into the back frying pan. Thanks to an eight-year study of nearly 50,000 women, scientists have been forced to concede that there are no obvious health benefits to living on rice cakes and bean sprouts. The study, which was published this week in The Journal of the American Medical Association, is “the nail in the coffin for low-fat diets,” according to Walter Willett, a researcher from the Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. David A. Freedman, a statistician at the University of California, Berkeley, added that the study serves as proof positive that “the scientific community often gives strong advice based on flimsy evidence.” Still, whatever today’s scientists pontificate a gullible public appears ever ready to implement.

I still remember my granny’s black, iron skillet. She cooked everything in it, from fatback to cornbread. Although I never heard her praise “the lard” like those Yankees up in Massachusetts do, she was nonetheless into deep frying. She also lived to a ripe old age without ever suffering any of the common maladies plaguing today’s health-conscience granola eaters. Until the results of scientists’ unprecedented study on low-fat dieting were released this week, I’d always wondered why granny’s arteries weren’t clogged up like the shower drain of a balding Sasquatch.

Although this new study will have an adverse effect upon the food industry, especially when it comes to selling its low-fat cookies and potato chips, it lends credence to two of my favorite Bible verses: 1 Timothy 4:4, which teaches us that all food is good “if received with thanksgiving” and 1 Timothy 4:8, which teaches us that “bodily exercise profiteth little.” Thanks to modern science, I can now proudly don my “Eat right, exercise daily, and die anyway” T-shirt.

Seriously, I’ve always suspected that the length of my life would be determined by God rather than my cholesterol count. When my final appointment comes (Hebrews 9:27), an extra dab of mayonnaise on a sandwich won’t move it up, nor will a can of Slim-Fast in place of the sandwich put it off. This doesn’t mean that we’re not to take care of our bodies, which are the temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16-17; 6:19; 2 Corinthians 6:16), but only that our life expectancy is ultimately determined by God, not by how rigidly we follow the South Beach Diet.