DIETING. . . SALAD DAYS AND ICE CREAM SUNDAES:

Americans are now eating more vegetables and cutting back on traditional artery cloggers like red meat and eggs, but then they're rewarding themselves with a bowl of ice cream or a cream-laced cup of coffee, a new government study says. "Americans are slowly, and with fits and starts, shifting their eating patterns toward more healthful diets," the Agriculture Department says in a new report comparing today's eating habits with diets of the 1970s, but "a considerable gap still remains between public health recommendations and consumers' practices." Among the findings: The average person ate 20 lbs. less red meat and 73 fewer eggs last year than in 1970, but they added 23 lbs. of sugars -- for a record 147 lbs. per person.