First, a disclaimer: I know nothing about nutrition or vitamins or the mechanics of being healthy.

My medical diagnoses include a stomach ache that turned out to be a ruptured appendix that blew me into intensive care, and a minor urinary tract problem that was actually a prostate the size of a grapefruit. Not pleasant.

On the nutrition front, I keep up to date by following the news. The result is confusion.

Let us take vitamin D as a starting point. The good news, I see in the papers, is that vitamin D is a powerful cancer fighter. The further good news is that we are bathed in this vitamin every day because it comes from sunshine. But that is also the bad news, because, for the past few years, I’ve avoided direct sun because of those UV rays that can cause skin cancer.

See what I mean by confusion?

Or take trans fats. I know from my reading that they are bad. But what I don’t grasp is where they come from, although the name seems to say that they are crossing over from the Dark Side. Further, I have the idea that these fats have something to do with hydrog-enation. Except that, once again, I have no firm idea of what hydrogenation is. My first guess is that some foods are shot full of hydrogen. Can this really be true? And, if so, is hydrogen bad?

And if hydrogen has a downside, what does that say about water? What little chemistry I know tells me that water is chock full of the stuff.

I have always believed that water is basically good — except for water in cities, which seems to be oversupplied with lead. Which is bad.

(For the record, my water comes from a well that has its own stock of nature’s pollutants. No lead, though.)

Or take cholesterol. Once again, my body seems to be well supplied. I do my best to keep it under control and I’m inclined to root it out. Except that while some cholesterol is bad, some also is good. Confusing, right?

Or let us consider good, old ordinary fat. Fat is simple: it’s bad. And being obese is very bad. And if you have trouble seeing past your stomach to read your bathroom scale, you should get out and exercise and follow a wise diet. Except my reading tells me that some fat is genetic and most people who lose weight eventually put it all back on.

(In this field, I have some expertise. Over the years, I have lost the equivalent of a 12-year-old boy and his dog, Shep. I have lost them and then found them, although right now I’m on the losing side.)

If I kept to the nutrition facts I know — or think I know — my diet would go like this: broccoli and Brussels sprouts, with kale for dessert. And perhaps a salmon sandwich on multi-grain bread with no mayonnaise. I’d never look at another rich cream sauce and would bid farewell to cheese, even though it is rich in calcium and I read somewhere that my bones need a good supply of this.

Every so often, I would knock off a bottle of red wine because I read somewhere that it is full of something good for me. And perhaps a little glass of whiskey (single malt) now and then because of its beneficial effects. Every so often, I would chew a handful of natural bran because I read that it can control the evil cholesterol while leaving the good to do Nature’s work.

Then, when I knew I was going to be alone for a couple of days, I’d whip up a multi-bean salad — garbanzos, fava, black beans, and so on — because all that natural fibre is just what I need. I mean, have you ever seen a beaver with a cholesterol problem?

But to get back to vitamin D, which launched me on this excursion, my current solution is to go out in the sun with one sleeve rolled up for health and the other rolled down, also for health. And that’s what I mean by confusion. IE