Fat

* Item: Red Baron Breakfast Pizza* Servings per package: 2* Cost: About $2.69* Preparation time: 3-5 minutes in microwave or 20 minutes in conventional oven* Review: It's not as convenient as an Egg McMuffin (too messy for commuting), yet this mini breakfast pizza is a hearty option for the morning rush. The sausage scramble flavor features a biscuit-style crust topped with sausage bits, scrambled eggs and Cheddar and mozzarella cheeses. Fat watchers won't be happy (nearly half the calories are from fat)

I have never been a slender man. I'm also neither particularly tall nor particularly coordinated. Which is why my love for Pittsburgh point guard Levance Fields has expanded more quickly than my waistline ever did. (For more, go to baltimoresun.com/toydept)

HAVE YOU ever been calipered? Well, neither have I.With America's obsession with thinness, seemingly normal people are being "calipered." It's the latest in thinness technology.My handsome cousin Rocko has just been calipered, and he is hysterical. He called from Los Angeles to tell me about it. Rocko is 65, looks about 50, weighs 159, is very thin, runs every day and plays tennis three times a week. He does not smoke, drink or eat any fatty foods. And he's never been sick a day in his life.

I'd rather have too much sugar in my diet than too much fat. Is sugar really that bad for me, assuming I keep my daily calorie intake low? Comparing sugar and fat is like comparing apples and oranges. The only similarity is this: Both should make up a very tiny part of your diet. ("Good" fats, like those found in nuts and avocados, and sugar found in fruit are the exception and are a necessary part of your diet.) Your plan to keep overall calories down is unhealthy because it means leaving out more nutritious food.

The cook is nervous, the dinner guests more so. As the entree is cleared and thoughts turn toward dessert -- an interlude usually filled with pleasant anticipation -- blood pressure begins to rise. How high will it (the souffle, not the blood pressure) rise? Will it fall? Collapse? Do we care? Couldn't we have a plain layer cake? Furtive glances at the clock.Finally, the cook --es out (on tiptoe lest the floor shake), takes the souffle from the oven, tiptoes back and with lightning speed serves her creation while admonishing the hapless victims, "Eat quickly before it utterly disappears.

We're all counting fat grams and eating low-fat cookies. So how come we keep getting fatter?Maybe because we're eating too many fat-free foods that still have plenty of calories - maybe even more calories, suggest surveys commissioned by the U.S. Agriculture Department.Americans are getting a lower percentage of their calories from fat (34 percent, down from 40 percent five years ago), but we're eating more calories overall.The problem is, too many people mistakenly believe that if they count fat grams, they can ignore calories.

While developing and testing recipes for her book on low-fat baking, Susan Purdy found ways to cut the fat content without sacrificing flavors. Here are some of the tricks she used in "Have Your Cake and Eat It, Too."* Maximize small amounts of nuts, which are high in fat, by sprinkling them on top of a cake or pie instead of mixing them into the batter or filling. "They have what I call 'taste visibility' that way," Ms. Purdy says. Toasting the nuts intensifies the flavor. Nut oils also are a way to add a nutty flavor to a recipe.

"If the food label doesn't spell out the fat content, assume the worst . . . People who eat M&M's may have a sweet tooth, but they've got a fat tooth, too, for M&M's are 80 percent fat. . . . Two percent milk is actually 38 percent fat."These are among the gems of Joe Piscatella, the fat food warrior, as he continues his relentless campaign against clogged arteries -- a mission he has honed to a science in three volumes, the latest of which he calls "Controlling Your Fat Tooth," (Workman Publishing 1991, $15.95)

BOSTON -- I am careening through the supermarket, speed-shopping down my Thanksgiving list, when I arrive at the poultry aisle. A vast landscape of turkeys stretches down the 50-yard chiller.Before me lie tons of turkey, boulders of birds, glistening piles of plastic-wrapped, plucked and prepared poultry. These domestic creatures bred to elephantine proportions are lined up breast-by-breast waiting for the customers.I have come fowling, as the Pilgrims described their hunt, for the requisite creature, a bird bearing 25 pounds of flesh on its bones.

Snack manufacturer Frito-Lay is chomping down on fat in a big way, investing $225 million to expand its line of low-fat and no-fat items, such as Rold Gold Fat-Free Pretzels, Ruffles Reduced-Fat Potato Chips and Baked Tostitos tortilla chips. The investment will mean three new plants and additional snack production lines at 15 Frito-Lay plants.Frito-Lay, a division of Pepsico Inc., is betting that aging baby boomers obsessed with cutting out fat will increasingly be demanding low-fat and nonfat snacks.