After a dressing down from my medical health professional, I have been on a quest to eat a healthy diet. That is to say, instead of eating a whole batch of chocolate chip cookie dough in one sitting, I’ll down only two cookies’ worth of dough.

That’s enough to cleanse my palate of the taste of all those fresh vegetables and other healthy things.

This quest for better eating habits (figuring out how many sweets I can sneak without getting another admonishment from my primary healthcare provider), reminded me of a very scary bedtime story I read years ago:

An engineer right out of a horror movie, but working at the University of Plymouth in England, designed a “smart” refrigerator programmed to withhold unhealthy snacks from dieters.

A refrigerator trained to taunt you with food it won’t let you have! Could any nightmare be more vicious?

I don’t recall how the refrigerator worked. Undoubtedly, it involved high-tech wizardry — probably something futuristic like on “The Jetsons” cartoon show in which an automated flyswatter would pop out of the appliance and smack my hand whenever I reached for a Coke and candy bar.

I did not need such a torturous icebox when I was married. My wife might be three rooms away with headphones and the volume cranked as she jammed to Motown while running the wailing vacuum cleaner, but as soon as creaked open the fridge door as quietly as possible, she was at my side, smacking my hands.

She justified this with the usual weak excuses — “I’m concerned about your health,” “That chicken is for the church picnic,” “Leave something for the rest of us,” and so on.

This couldn’t happen here in America, you say. What about our constitutional right to life, liberty and happiness? Isn’t happiness defined as chocolate, french fries and pudding?

Ah, but read the fine print. It’s actually in the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution, and the statement reads: “…and the PURSUIT of happiness.”

Capturing it is optional.

Also, if you’re married, you’ve given your life to another, and you’ve voluntarily accepted limits on your liberty.

In short, if she says stay out of the cherry cheesecake, you leave it alone. For your health. Because to sneak some may cause swelling and bruising if she catches you.

Back to the insidious smart fridge — this technology could spread like some insane virus, a pandemic of pandemonium, threatening to destroy every cupcake, sub sandwich and stadium dog that mankind holds dear.

Someday, you may drive up to a fast-food restaurant and order a juicy double burger dripping with cheese, bacon and barbecue sauce, giant fries with lots of salt, and a jumbo chocolate milkshake.

But while you are speaking into the crackly intercom on the menu board, it is pounding you back with laser beams measuring the wallowing fat cells per body inside the car.

When you pull up to the window, instead of what you wanted, the kid in the funny hat hands you the BMI special, a garden salad and ice water.

“And hey, if you drop eight pounds, we’ll throw in some low-cal dressing. Have a nice day, tubby.”

Or you may go to the grocery store and find that the carts are electrified the same way fences are juiced to keep grazing cattle in check.

Once you touch the grocery cart, it will scan your fingerprints, read your blood sugar levels, and pull up the list of all the good stuff, such as chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, that your diet doesn’t allow. Grab the ice cream, and the cart will zap you until you fling the offending delicacy back.

Please, let me keep my low-tech refrigerator. It will save the lemon meringue pie from rotting.

Chew on more dieting tips from Cole at burton.w.cole@gmail.com or on the Burton W. Cole page on Facebook.