As if it's not enough of a problem to pollute our air with petroleum fumes, now we are being bombarded with a new kind of threat.

I write of nothing more destructible to the constant dieter than bio-engineered fuels, you know the ones made out of corn oil. The more I read about the new ethanol fuels that are so promising to the greening of America the more I am worried that they will also be the cause of its demise by fat.

As I see it we now have two major health problems in the US. Breathing air polluted with petroleum fumes, and the ever expanding problem of obesity.

To solve one, replace petroleum with greener ethanol ,we must as a nation devote more acreage to growing corn, which in turn will produce the ethanol fuel that will power our car's engines. At the same time we are experiencing an increase in the girth of our nation due to obesity, our second problem. If the country provides cheaper fuels, and we are not as dependent on foreign oil, then we may be solving our trade deficit and our pollution problems. But we will be endangering future generations with the obesity problem in two distinct ways?Will we be powering more cars with cheaper fuels, which means that our obese population will walk less, and we will also be polluting the air with a new kind of threat to our collective national gut, the smell of corn oil permeating the air. For in internal combustion engines we need to "burn" fuel and
its residue from burning is a gas that will fill the air. A gas, I must add, with tongue in cheek, that will be the heavenly scent of French fries cooking in corm oil. This robust aroma, that few humans can resist, will lead us to our kitchens or to fast food emporiums where we will be unwittingly coerced, nay seduced, into buying French fries.

And thus, we will solve one problem, the greening of America, the dependence on foreign fuels , by exchanging it for another problem, the fattening of America.

Dieters everywhere, from Spark People to Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers clients, will be drawn to the aroma of French Fries in the air. Oh me, oh my, we will be manipulated once again by corporate America. We cannot win. Burp.