My son was flipping channels a couple of days ago, and he paused on Dr. Oz's show for a few minutes. I'd never seen it before. It was so irritating I just had to post here.

They were talking about lowering your blood cholesterol by lowering your dietary cholesterol. (Because we know that whatever we eat goes directly into our blood stream. I ate a salad half an hour ago. I imagine bits of celery and lettuce are floating in my blood even as I sit here.)

Anyway he's demonstrating simple substitutions you can make while cooking to lower cholesterol. He first shows how much cholesterol is in butter. Then he explains you can substitute a mashed banana for butter in cooking. 0 grams cholesterol. And the audience of women all gasp in amazement and awe. And the look on his face says, "Yea, ain't I wonderful?"

Now I don't know how they got all those women to gasp audibly. A sign flashing, "Gasp in wonder"? Pre-recorded gasps inserted at the right place? An audience of particularly stupid women? But, honestly, it looked like the guy was actually eating it up. There's always a risk that you'll be taken in by your own PR.