To eat meat or not? What's a foodie to do when even researchers can't agree?

George Carlin used to joke that if you got cancer you should just "get yourself a $%&damned bowl of broccoli and it'll be gone … (snap of fingers) … like that!"

Carlin thought it was funny that some people believed eating gobs of veggies can make you impervious to disease.

But maybe the joke was on him.

Some researchers claim that eliminating meat and dairy from your diet will not only stave off major diseases and prolong life, it's been shown to cure some life-threatening illnesses, such as cancer and heart disease.

For instance, in his 2006 book "The China Study: Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health," T. Colin Campbell, a noted doctor and researcher, laid out a compelling argument, based on a 20-year study, that switching to a plant-based diet dramatically changes lives and could cure our health care crisis.

Campbell's book seeks a broader redefinition of the way Americans view food and dietary choices. He takes aim at powerful food lobbies that spend billions of dollars each year perpetuating poor food choices that Campbell says are making us sick, even killing us, and wreaking havoc with our health care and political system.

"As a taxpayer who foots the bill for research and health policy in America, you deserve to know that many of the common notions you have been told about food, health and disease are wrong," Campbell says in his book.

He levels some of his harshest criticism against diet purveyors in our bloated fitness industry, such as the originators of the Atkins Diet, painting them as disingenious and greedy, and saying they've been pushing diets that rely heavily on meat and provide short-term gains that lead to long-term health problems.

The problems with the American diet, he says, go well beyond our love of fast-food restaurants, salty and fatty junk foods, oversized restaurant portions and fad weight loss programs.

The problem, Campbell says. is that the protein we get from meat and dairy cause cancer, heart disease, obesity, diabetes and other grave illnesses.

Switching to a plant-based diet, he says, not only dramatically decreases the rates of those diseases, it can reverse their effects.

If the health benefits of eliminating meat from your diet aren't enough to convince you, perhaps the latest argument against eating animals will. In his new book, succintly called "Eating Animals," Jonathan Safran Foer questions the morality of eating meat and argues that it could be ruining our environment.

Foer visits factory farms and slaughterhouses, describes how some animals spend their lives in dark and inhumanely crowded buildings before being hauled off to slaughter to feed a nation whose appetite for meat never abates. Such a system, where the oceans are overfished and the land is overused and polluted with pesticides, is unsustainable, he argues.

Eating animals, Foer says, is a topic that, like abortion, makes us uncomfortable but one that we should face. While Foer doesn't chastise carnivores for their choices, he wants them to see the reality behind the nicely packaged pork chops they pick up at the grocer's each week.

Into this fatty fray comes a new study by "The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition," and written about in a recent issue of the magazine "Scientific American," which claims that saturated fat, most often found in meat, is not what's making Americans sick and obese in large numbers, it's refined carbohydrates, found in processed foods. Other research indicates that eating moderate amounts of fat can be good for us. Obesity experts warn that those findings don't mean we should start gorging ourselves on things like butter and steak, but we also shouldn't shun completely saturated fats in favor of processed foods.

The so-called "moderation argument," has found its way into the mainstream food culture as well. Cooking Light, a magazine born from the lowfat movement, has made a clear shift in recent months toward embracing recipes that call for things like butter and cream.

In the January issue, Scott Mowbray, Cooking Light's editor, laid out his magazine's new approach to food and why the health-conscience publication now has articles like "Indulge Adventurously," "Drink Well," and "Choose Healthy Fats."

"What we believe is simply this: The revival of farmer's markets, the national excitement about chefs, the relaxing of black-and-white ideas about fat, carbs and fiber, the reaffirming of food's role in healthy social interaction, it's all good," Mowbray wrote. "It can be knit together in a positive, nurturing, cook-centered and fun approach to healthy eating …"

So what's the takeaway here for the rest of us? I think it's this: Your grandmother was right. Eat everything in moderation. Don't eat junk, it'll make you fat. Some fats are good for you and if you don't want to get them by eating animals you can easily find plant-based sources, like olive oil.

Eat lots of fruits and vegetables because no one in these nutrition debates is making the argument that they're bad for you.

And do as George Carlin said. Get yourself a bowl of broccoli - maybe even have a little butter on it.