The Food pyramid

[ZedNova]

Is the food pyramid even worth taking seriously?

If i followed this guide when eating, i'd be in a coma by now. 6-11 servings of grain a day, seriously?

So i guess my question is this: Is the food pyramid based off of any actual scientific studies? How can you assign a single guide to everyone's diet when everyone's health, age and metabolism vary?

The food plate makes even less sense:

[Red Iron Crown]

There is so much misinformation and pseudoscience in the nutrition field that it's difficult to know what to take seriously.

[Godot]

You can´t even fully trust the informations about kCals that are contained within foodstuff.

kCal informations usually exclude a large part of the kCals that are supplied by dietary fibers (due to the inability of the human colon, to fully break them up into usable components).

Problem is, however, that the real ability to break up (and use) dietary fibers is individually different ... the body of one person may be better in digesting dietary fibers than the body of another person.

Therefore one person may take up more energy by digesting food with a high content of fibers, than another person

[Camacha]

There is so much misinformation and pseudoscience in the nutrition field that it's difficult to know what to take seriously.

Yes, there is. A little common sense does go a long way though. Although there are cultural and local differences, looking back in time at what has served mankind over the centuries as a food source is probably not the worst food. Grains, dairy (for those of European descent, not everyone can digest that), vegetables, some fruit and a little meat. Every couple of years some fad will focus on one of those are being exceptionally good or evil, but any real basis generally lacks. Too much of anything is bad, that is one thing that is certain.

I actually think the food pyramid makes sense for my diet. I eat bread twice a day and a hot meal once a day. I think it is safe to say those carbohydrates are a mainstay. Meat and dairy are probably a bit more prominent in my diet. Not only to supply my body with the proteins it needs because of sports and exercise, but also because I am rather partial to both.

[linkxsc]

Well see theres the thing, a lot of people don't really understand "serving size" 6-11 grains a day generally equates to ~ 3-7 slices of bread, and such (I think 1 ear of corn counts as 2servings, or ~1/4th lb cooked rice, or 2 cups of cereal)

And even then its considered in a range. I'm sure most people could handle 4 slices of bread, an apple, an orange, 5 minutes of raiding a veggie tray (really you wanna get kids to eat their veggies? Cut them up into small easy to eat chunks, and keep them on hand, its easy. Veggie plates are godly for this) or a couple small salads. A couple glasses of milk and a small piece of meat (a serving of meat is roughly the size of a deck of cards, or a small hamburger patty)

Honestly I hit the whole food pyramid almost each meal (although right now I'm doing a bit more meat because I'm working out more and need moar protein) but I'm a fairly large-built person... Perhaps I do eat a little too much, but its generally burned off when the weekend comes and we get a game of streethockey going on or such.

[Jesrad]

The food pyramid and the USDA recommendations are the product of agri business lobbying in the 70s, they are NOT based on science at all.

Read more about it there:

http://www.fathead-movie.com/index.php/no-bologna-facts/

http://nusi.org/

http://time.com/2863227/ending-the-war-on-fat/

[cantab]

Yeah, I think the size of a "serving" is what's at fault here, it's unhelpfully small.

[Napaeozapus]

The food pyramid and the USDA recommendations are the product of agri business lobbying in the 70s, they are NOT based on science at all.

Read more about it there:

http://www.fathead-movie.com/index.php/no-bologna-facts/

http://nusi.org/

http://time.com/2863227/ending-the-war-on-fat/

Yes. Low fat diets are a terrible idea.

[Janet]

The whole thing is a way to lower our wages. Grains are cheaper than meat. The vegan lobby has been enlisted to disinform, but they're otherwise innocent. The big money is in weaning us off the good stuff.

If you are heavy, forget the plate and the pyramid. Limit the grains and fruit severely, eat veggies and protein. You can eat all you want.

[Kryten]

The whole thing is a way to lower our wages. Grains are cheaper than meat. The vegan lobby has been enlisted to disinform, but they're otherwise innocent. The big money is in weaning us off the good stuff.

Yes, they're out to make money out of us by making us spend less on food. Makes perfect sense.

[AngelLestat]

I follow this model:

[ZedNova]

The whole thing is a way to lower our wages. Grains are cheaper than meat. The vegan lobby has been enlisted to disinform, but they're otherwise innocent. The big money is in weaning us off the good stuff.

If you are heavy, forget the plate and the pyramid. Limit the grains and fruit severely, eat veggies and protein. You can eat all you want.

Eh, I seriously doubt that vegetarians are "behind" any of this; For the most part it's a personal choice for them, and they don't try to force others to follow suite.

[Janet]

Make money on us by paying us less, Kryten. Big money there.

[Janet]

I didn't say the vegans were behind it. I said they front for it, in all their sincerity.

[Camacha]

I didn't say the vegans were behind it. I said they front for it, in all their sincerity.

Grains are cheaper than meat, that was already the case before money was ever invented or humans existed. Muscle mass is incredible expensive to maintain for a body, and hazardous and a serious energy investment when obtaining it from another form of life. Except for the hazard part, all it still true.

Arguing otherwise is really going to take a great story. Not to mention that every chart I can find show a steady climb in meat consumption since the 1920s.

[NFUN]

The food pyramid has been pretty much universally disbanded in favor of a more up to date model, and that has been ceased in favor of the food plate. I don't know the effectiveness of the plate, but historical trends suggest that it isn't here to stay. I don't care if that prediction is factually baseless and irresponsible or not.

[Jesrad]

Grains are cheaper than meat,

Yeah, too bad grains are not food, except for birds and some rodents. At best they are a cheap stand-in for food, at worst they're outright toxic. They make most mammals sick, humans included. They're poor in useful nutrition and are very insulinogenic.

every chart I can find show a steady climb in meat consumption since the 1920s.

Except in the USA.

[Jouni]

Yeah, too bad grains are not food, except for birds and some rodents. At best they are a cheap stand-in for food, at worst they're outright toxic. They make most mammals sick, humans included. They're poor in useful nutrition and are very insulinogenic.

That's just nonsense. The domestication of cereals was what made human civilization possible.

[Jesrad]

Please define 'civilization': Gobekli Tepe predated agriculture. So you got it in reverse: civilization made the culture of cereals possible, and not the other way around.

Also, our ancestors wouldn't have switched to poorer food sources if there had been no silver lining. Most people would get deficiencies if it wasn't mandatory by law to 'fortify' them preemptively with vitamins and minerals.

Edited August 23, 2014 by Jesrad

[Jesrad]

Let's get back on-topic though. There's an entire, documented book written on the subject of exactly how and why the food pyramid in particular and the USDA nutritional guidelines in general are wrong and unfounded in any science.

And another great book on why it is likely to not change anytime soon.

[Jouni]

Please define 'civilization': Gobekli Tepe predated agriculture. Also, our ancestors wouldn't have switched to poorer food sources if there had been no silver lining. Most people would get deficiencies if it wasn't mandatory by law to 'fortify' them preemptively with vitamins and minerals.

I'm quite familiar with Göbekli Tepe. It's within a day's hike from the area where agriculture is generally believed to have started. According to some theories, the complex may even be deeply linked to the start of agriculture.

Agriculture allowed the population of an area to grow by two orders of magnitude. While hunter-gatherers were initially bigger and healthier and had more free time, they couldn't compete against the hordes of sedentary humans. Instead, the expansion of civilization displaced them from their lands, forcing them to live in areas less suitable for human life.

That's by definition prehistory. Better cultivars and farming techniques became available over time, while humans slowly adapted to use cereals as their main source of energy. Even now there are significant differences between human populations in how well they can handle cereals. Populations with a long history of agriculture generally fare better, while populations that have only had a few centuries to adapt experience more problems.

[78stonewobble]

I think maybe the problem is... people trying to make it more than a rule of thumb, like the concept of Body Mass Index.

It should seen as a general guideline to most people, that if you... ie. eat more sweets and/or frenchfries than anything else or drink massive amounts of soft drinks, containing sugar, then you might be heading for trouble.

But offcourse it can't be used on everyone. People are different afterall.

EDIT: Though I'm curious as to where they got the... 6-11 helpings of something from. Who the hell has the time and inclination to eat constantly

[Jesrad]

I'm curious as to where they got the... 6-11 helpings of something from. Who the hell has the time and inclination to eat constantly

The answer is in this other great book.

The original guidelines compiled by Luise Light were rewritten liberally by agribusiness lobbies before they were presented to the Senate.

The guide kept sugar well below 10 percent of total calories and strictly limited refined carbohydrates, with white-flour products like crackers, bagels, and bread rolls shoved into the guide’s no-bueno zone alongside candy and junk food.. And the kicker:. grains were pruned down to a maximum of two to three servings per day, always in whole form.

… Satisfied that their recommendations were scientifically sound and economically feasible, Light’s team shipped the new food guide off to the Secretary of Agriculture’s office for review.. And that’s when the trouble began.

When Light received the (ahem) edited version of her guidelines back from the USDA, they were a grain-promoting perversion of what she’d originally submitted.. Horrified, Light explained that “no one needs that much bread and cereal in a day unless they are longshoremen or football players†and warned that the six-to-eleven servings of grain per day recommended by the USDA could spark epidemics of obesity and diabetes.

The only justification she’d been given was that the changes would help curb the cost of the food stamp program:. fruits and vegetables were expensive, the head of Light’s division explained – and from a nutritional standpoint, the USDA considered them somewhat interchangeable with grains.. Emphasizing the latter in the American diet would help food assistance programs stay within budget.

There you have it: vote-buying.