WHAT'S FOR DINNER? Revised dietary recommendations from the USDA will be taking shape in the form of a new food chart. But will it help Americans eat better?
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The "food pyramid" is getting squashed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) this week.
Gone will be the massive base slab of breads, pasta and grains—and the suggestive "sparing" point of sweets and fats—of the 1990s. Gone also will be the confounding rainbow-striped "MyPyramid" with its online personal food plans introduced in 2005 during the George W. Bush administration. In their place will be a new circular chart to depict the government's recommended model for American meals.
The revelation is, of course, not one of geometry but one of proportions. In the new U.S. dietary model, fruits and vegetables are taking center stage, likely comprising a good half of the picture.
The new chart, to be unveiled Thursday morning, has been kept under wraps. But reports from those who have seen it describe it as a dinner plate with proportions of various servings mapped out in colorful slices and accompanied by a small white circle—to represent a glass of milk or other dairy product.
The classic tiered food pyramid was recognized by nutritionists as a misstep almost as soon as it debuted in 1992. "More and more research has shown that the USDA pyramid is grossly flawed …" Walter Willett, chair of Harvard University's School of Public Health's Department of Nutrition, and Meir Stampfer, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, wrote back in 2003, "…the pyramid provides misleading guidance."
Is the new food chart headed in the right direction—and will it actually help Americans eat better? To find out, we spoke with Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University and author of several books, including What to Eat (North Point Press, 2006). And as Nestle pointed out in a 2007 article for Scientific American, "Nutrition advice seems endlessly mired in scientific argument, the self-interest of food companies and compromises by government regulators." So how does she think the new USDA model looks?
[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]
Why does the food pyramid need to go?
Because the 2005 pyramid had no food on it. It was completely un-teachable, and you needed a computer to understand it.
What about the older food pyramid version with the starches on the bottom?
I liked it much better. That one was the result of a very long research project. The message they wanted to convey was it was better to eat more of some things than others.
But there were two major causes for argument: political and nutritional. The political one made clear that meats and junk foods were to be consumed, but in smaller portions than other foods. The nutritional flaw was that it had grains at the bottom and recommended six to 11 servings. The serving sizes have grown to tremendous proportions, and no one knew what serving sizes were. One bagel is six servings, but no one knew that.
What do you think of the dinner plate idea?
Well, it's banal, but it works. It's very easily teachable.
I don't think it goes far enough, but it's certainly headed in the right direction. I think it's actually pretty great. You can show someone and say, "Your dinner plate should look like this." And they'll say you're out of your mind. For most of us meat has made up most of the meal. This is a huge change, and I think it's courageous. Nobody profits from fruits and vegetables—except for the growers, and they don't make very much. All the money is in processing food and the intermediate steps.
Are these new recommendations based on good science—about diet and about how people are likely to use the chart?
They're certainly based more on science than they ever have been before. They're from the new USDA dietary guidelines, which were released earlier this year. So they have a research basis, and this is meant to put this research basis forward.
If you were to design the dietary chart, what would it look like?
This is trivial, but I hate the "protein" sector. I'm a nutritionist, and it's a switch from food to nutrients, which is always a mistake—it's just wrong. Grains and dairy, which have their own sectors, are a very important source of protein. They didn't want to call it the meat group in part because the meat industry has really been trying to equate meat with protein, and they didn't want to minimize meat and have smaller sectors for beans, poultry and fish. This is their way of doing an "eat less meat" move without actually saying it.
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12 Comments
Add CommentOkay so what does the new chart look like? show us a picture. BTW in the 80's a guy on PBS had a perfect solution. One round chart, like a dart board, with everything on it and if you ate the bad stuff on one side you were to balance it out with good stuff on the other side very simple but then we are talking about the government here. Could you imagine if they decide to redesign traffic lights what that would look like
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey need to stop categorizing Fruits and Vegetables together, THEY AREN'T THE SAME THING! It'd be like saying Vitamin Water is in the same category as V8. Fruits should be greatly limited, while vegetables should be unlimited in serving sizes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey should also inform people about alkaline vs acidic foods, proper salt ratio's (potassium to sodium)(5:1), and proper Essential Fatty Acid ratio's (omega 3's to omega 6's) (2:1).
The food pyramid is a load of bologna. It is not based on any kind of scientific fact or sound nutritional information. Why they keep perpetuating this myth is anyone's guess, the answer depending on how tight one's tinfoil cap is.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFat is a necessary nutrient, and does not pose any health risks, as long as it comes from natural animal or vegetable sources (ie., NOT canola oil, or hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated soybean, corn or "vegetable" oil) Saturated fat has never, ever been proven to contribute to heart disease. Fat does not make you fat.
SUGAR DOES. And ... ALL carbs are sugar, some just break down into sugar faster than others. Carbs from grains and fruits convert to glucose the fastest. That from vegetable and animal products such as dairy and eggs, the slowest.
The rise in blood sugar causes release of insulin - the faster and greater the rise in blood sugar, the more insulin is released. Insulin causes the body to convert food energy to fat, rather than utilize it for kinetic energy. Thus, just as our grandparent knew - before the hogwash of the food pyramid - it is bread, potatoes, rice, pasta and SUGAR (including that which is found in fruit!) that makes us fat!
So, for the last 30 or so years, this crazy food pyramid has been pushed on us as the ideal nutritional guide, yet at the same time obesity, diabetes, heart disease and other related problems, have skyrocketed.
It ain't a coincidence, folks.
NPR has an image: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/06/02/136884100/new-symbol-for-healthful-eating-hello-plate-goodbye-pyramid?sc=fb&cc=fp
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOkay, I give up. What does the new plate chart look like, or is it a government secret? What is the real reason for changing the chart from a pyramid to a plate? Has the government finally caved into the fat industries (dairy, meat, poultry, etc.)? They never have liked how they were portrayed on the pyramid. Why does the government even care if it's citizens eat a healthy diet anyway? Has the insurance industry demanded that the government make people eat healthier so the don't have to pay out so many death benefits? Seems like money is behind everything the government does. Assuming a nutrition chart is actually necessary, why are fruits and vegetables grouped together? They're significantly different nutritionally. It seems to me that the public could benefit from the food police making some kind of distinction between high-carb and low-carb fruits and veggies. They're both relatively high in carbohydrates, something diabetics are supposed to keep to a minimum. I guess this chart is for people not suffering from diabetes. Unfortunately, according to the American Diabetes Assn., 25.8 million Americans, 8.3% of the population, have diabetes. Are they supposed to use a different chart? And where on the chart does it tell Americans how to avoid food imported from China and other faraway places that is contaminated with melamine or other nasty substances? The government won't even require country-of-origin labeling. That seems to me to be just as important as nutritional content. I think the government still has a lot of work to do to make food safe and healthy for Americans.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDo we really expect people so dumb they couldn't read the old chart to read the new one correctly?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthanks
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI though someone might come up with it while I was working
As a community health dietitian working in NYC, the "plate model method" as we call it has been well received by my patients. It is an easy-to-use concept for balanced meals and portion control, which the Food Guide Pyramid never effectively got across to the average American. Here is the USDA's graphic: http://www.choosemyplate.gov/ though I happen to like the NYC Dept of Health graphic even more: http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/downloads/pdf/csi/obesity-plate-planner-13.pdf
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBoth 'Pyramid' and 'Plate' have an essential mistake: they consider ONLY the QUALITY and not the QUANTITY, e.g the INDIVIDUAL daily calorie requirement. And by the end, is ONLY the QUANTITY, which makes us fat or not! This means, you can eat 'healthy' and die obese! It is well documented, that the individual daily calorie requirement is different from person to person. Thus a person eating 2000 calories daily can maintain a 'normal body weight, whereas another one can become obese and a third one might even lose weight! Measuring the Resting Betabolic Rate helps obtaining a realistc individual calorie requirement. Read also the book with the title "Eating healthy and dying obese+ and the comment on Morgan Spurlock's homepage (SuperSizeMe) with this link http://super-size-me.morganspurlock.com/forum/posts/id_74/Eating-healthy-and-dying-obese/
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHealthy and plateless Greetings from Switzerland
Leoluca Criscione
Thank god, finally, a nutritionist who doesn't have his/her head up his/her a**.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn the late 70's, early 80's I asked two separate 'nutrionists', (this was during the sugar-debate time period) why they thought honey was exactly equal to sugar (meaning sucrose out of a bag from your local small grocer). Both 'nutritionists' claimed there was no difference between honey and sugar but offered no real proof. Now, being a chemistry student, I knew that honey has minimums of seven different sugars: i.e., maltose, lactose, dextrose, sucrose and many more (and yes, lactose could also be in honey), so how could a nutritionist make such a claim? After all, ask any beer or wine fermenter about cracked sugars, and you will find that the body--yours or a yeast bacteria--uses the sugars differently and at different rates. That's just one fact. Another is that honey has trace amounts of both minerals and vitamins.
My point is, does the nutritionist (at least the 70's-80's mind set), have a basis for his/her ideas on nutrition? I thimk that the best way to eat is by watching herbivores and carnivores eat, and then model our behavior on that. Does a wolf, hummingbird, cow, mouse, kangaroo, buzzard drink soda? Do they commonly eat potato chips and other junk food? (Well, thinking of crows, maybe that is not such a good question, after all, I eat that crap because it tastes so wonderful particularly because of the salt and sugar.)
Take a very close look at the diet of those in Europe - born in Eastern EU myself I was raised on all natural, all homemade stews full of fresh veggies + meat meat and meat. Solid quality proteins and plenty of vitamins and minerals. Never got sick as a kid, strong, and overall healthy. Moreso than my fellows who grew up eating 2 slices of white bread with 1 slice boloney for lunch in grade school ... sure I was thus a bit overweight as a result. if I had ate the equal calories per day but lived over seas I would have been much more muscular, and overall just healthier. We are not nearly active enough around here. And where you are too. Unless you are lucky to live near the ocean, sea or large , clean and swimmable body of water or mountains .. then you get out more. I dont. sucks. Thankfully I am going away to Europe for a month this summer aand will eat all the fatty foods , swim and walk and not lay around the basement and flip channels all day so my weight will go down. Tan will go up. Health? will benefit... hope you got my message. We gotta move. More. Less fried and processed and dipping sauces and all these chemicals.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have said for years the food pyramid was unhealthy. This new plate model looks much better. I would go one step further and take all processed carbs such as pasta and bread out but in the real world people can't eat that way... yet.
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