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The phrase "guilty pleasure" is a common thread in newspapers and on TV in discussions about food and fat and calories and salt and cholesterol. I Googled the phrase to make sure I understood it correctly to mean -- at least as far as food is concerned -- eating something that you are convinced is bad for you (the guilty part), but ignoring the consequences and gobbling it down anyway because you like it so much (the pleasure part). The devil on your left shoulder winning out over the angel on your right.

This popped into my mind recently in a diner, when a smiling waitress put in front of me a plate of sliced hot turkey with gravy, sides of mashed potatoes, and limp broccoli. Ordinarily, I love some good turkey gravy, even though it consists mostly of flour, turkey drippings (i.e., hot fat), and a liberal dose of salt. For me, such gravy constitutes a guilty pleasure. (Unfortunately, it's often easy to push turkey gravy in a diner off to the side of the plate because -- I am convinced -- the cook makes the gravy not with turkey drippings but with a rapid-curing brown cement.)

The basic problem is that science and medicine are nudging more and more of our normal eating preferences into the realm of the guilty pleasure. Take salt, for instance. For as long as I can remember, salting a sunny-side-up egg was a way to make it taste good. Then one day it became a guilty pleasure.

Here are two news items: First, my school taxes are about to go up. Second, the FDA's recommended daily allowance of sodium is about to go down. I get to complain about the taxes quarterly, but the salt issue comes up every day. Two or three times a day, depending on whether I have an egg for breakfast or a bowl of raisin bran. I never salt the raisin bran.

The medical establishment says salt can raise a susceptible person's blood pressure and have all manner of other noxious effects. Some see a problem with too little salt. Nevertheless, they decided that all humankind should have no more than 2,400 milligrams of sodium a day -- about a teaspoonful. I assumed this meant 2,400 milligrams of salt (which is actually only half sodium, if I remember my high school chemistry correctly, but when I ask anyone a question about that, I never get an answer. Maybe nobody knows.)

Was the medical establishment content with 2,400 milligrams? Oh, no. Now, in Limbo-dance fashion, they want to lower the bar to a maximum of 1,500 milligrams a day, about half a teaspoon. Where are the salt lobbyists when you need them? This makes me think, as I salt my tomatoes, that a couple more shakes of the shaker will cause the top of my head to blow off. But so far, my head is intact, kain ein horeh.

I had no idea where I stood regarding all the finger wagging about sodium. How much was I actually getting? You never know how much salt there is in restaurant food -- all the articles say it's too much -- and I don't know if nutrition labels on packaged foods are accurate enough, so I decided on a method to see how much salt I personally sprinkled on food in a day.

It had to be a day of food prepared at home with no salt added in the cooking. Then, at meals, I would sprinkle a satisfying amount of salt on my otherwise salt-free food and then shake an equal amount into a small plastic bowl. Three shakes on the eggs would mean three matching shakes into the bowl. Four shakes on the chicken, four shakes into the bowl. At the end of the day, I would weigh the salt collected in the bowl with my little kitchen scale, and there would be the answer to my question: 1,500 milligrams? 2,400 milligrams? More? Less? Who knows?

Normally, when I tell my family about a plan like this, they sigh and mutter something about OCD (obsessive-compulsive dad.) My wife seemed to like the idea, provided I prepared all the salt-free meals. Have I done this yet? No. Will I ever? Probably not -- I think I don't want to know the answer. In addition, I would have to admit to being the OCD. But for the foods I love, I have learned to strike back against science, and probably my own good health, by rejecting information that would deny me the enjoyment of, say, a couple of salty, cholesterol-laden, possibly salmonella-contaminated, sunny side up eggs.

It's easier just to sprinkle on the salt and take my mind off the danger by thinking about the new school taxes.

Bernard Jacks is a freelance humor writer who lives in Marlboro. His columns have appeared in the New York Times, Smithsonian Magazine, and other publications.