Today I’m writing from Chicago, where I’ve been since Friday and will stay through Tuesday for the biggest gathering of registered dietitians there is – the American Dietetic Association Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo (FNCE). For me, FNCE is a busy mix of sharing the latest seafood science with fellow RDs; attending educational sessions to keep up on the latest about other foods; and networking with friends and colleagues, old and new.

Yesterday I went to a interesting session, not about a specific food at all, but about how we can best communicate about all foods through the media, called “Lost in Translation: Communicating Complex Diet and Health Relationships in a Sound-bite Hungry World.” One of my favorite points was slide two of former ADA spokesperson Shea Rarback’s presentation. She talked about “truthiness,” a word coined by Comedy Central’s Steven Colbert that “describes things that a person claims to know intuitively or from the gut’ without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination or acts.” “Truthiness” was recently added to the dictionary as a legitimate word, and I can see why. It comes in handy to describe the basis for much of the nutrition advice I see from non-qualified sources. Though I love this event, because with the mass of RDs, there is very little truthiness to be seen.