Mr. Pyramid isn't square (or anything else, for that matter)

[reinhard]

There is a funny article in the Economist about the evolution of the USDA's now somewhat infamous "Food Pyramid," known as "MyPyramid," in its latest incarnation (I'd link to the article, but it isn't free). The pyramid started out as a square, the four basic food groups. Since the square seemed to suggest that half your food come from meat and dairy, an unpopular idea by 1992, it was replaced by a pyramid, with each horizontal layer of the pyramid representing a food group and suggesting by its size an appropriate relative amount. But this wasn't completely satisfactory either, for various reasons, including the embarrassing explosion of obesity under the pyramids tenure. But, given pressure from numerous and vocal lobbies, all of which, from the Potato Association of America to the Almond Growers Association to low carbists to high carbists, wanted to see their client's particular product pictured, it was impossible to agree on a single representative image to replace it. So instead, the pyramid has just become a logo, with the horizontal food group layers replaced with meaningless vertical stripes, and a cute little Mr. pyramid jogging up the side (presumably to remind us to do some occasional jogging ourselves). Viewers are invited to visit the web site for customized dietary recommendations ("because everyone is different").

http://www.mypyramid.gov/

Type in your stats on the box on the upper right for your custom advice. Pretty unimaginative! You'd think they could have at least shown the output in pyramid like form.

What astonishes me is not that they can't compress complex nutritional requirements into a graphic the size of a postage stamp, but that they should spend millions of dollars attempting to do so -- several times.

To speak bluntly, is nutrition really that difficult, such a pressing problem? For some people with specific problems, and people in dreadfully poor countries, sure, but are there really vast numbers of undernourished Americans, in desperate need of being reminded by the USDA to eat more vegetables? On the contrary, we are over nourished. Practically speaking, for most of us, nutrition isn't a hard problem. Our instincts are quite sufficient to handle it. Dogs and cats and amoebas handle it. Our dino-rat-fish ancestors would never have made it out of the soup if they couldn't handle it. It's a natural problem and our natures are sufficient to
handle it. What is not a natural problem is excess. You don't see a lot of obese wild animals running around. Not because they wouldn't be obese given the opportunity, but because such opportunities don't exist in nature. Animals and humans don't have instincts to defend against such dangers because such dangers weren't -- until now. Excess is the real problem, and the solution doesn't require a multi million dollar postage stamp.

[jools]

Ok so i tried the pyramid put in my info- what a joke- doesnt even ask for your weight. what if i had weighed 300# I would have looked at the amounts they gave me and croaked. what was funny is that i am pretty much doing the suggested amount for a woman my age and exercise level

What a big waste of $$- our government at work oh yeah !

I see lots of over nourished people in our area but few under noursihed if any at all. hey lets all look for them shall we ? then we can give them the link for the pyramid web site so they can see what they should be eating according to our government standards- i am sure they are dying for that information !

jools

[Jammin' Jan]

I went on that site when it first came out. The info in the newspaper was pretty confusing, so I thought that maybe the website might express the whole thing more clearly.

What a big bunch of stupidity! How can anybody do anything useful with it?

They would've done much better with the no s diet and an admonition to eat veggies and skip the junk food.

[gratefuldeb67]

I don't even have the energy to start fooling around with that site... Who in the world designed that horrendous graphic?!!

To speak "bluntly", that pyramid sucks!
Where's all the cool stuff like pictures of legumes and grains?
Oh and also a cool picture of a chicken drumstick?
That is the pyramid of the ages!
(besides the ones at Giza and Chichinitza)
This pyramid makes me
pyra-mad! LOL...
Seriously, it really looks, as you put it Rein, very unimaginative...
Laaaame!
And is that supposed to be a "healthy" person?
Double lame!
How about some features guys??? LOL...

PS... HI JOOLS and welcome Jan I liked how you said it's full of "stupidity" LOL... good one...

Reinhard, thank you for that great post.
Gee, maybe we should all just become amoeba like again eh?
Less overanalyzing, and creating such craziness about food.

I am giving you all a pyramid of hugs now!
Love,
Deb

[navin]

Yeah, you guys are right about not being able to find undernourished people in the US. Heck, I volunteer at a food-bank-like thing where we hand out food to the underprivilaged, and even they seem to get nutrition. They may have other problems, but they aren't coming in with nutrition-related problems like scurvy or rickets or anything... maybe the variety of food they get from whatever they can find is actually a good thing?

Now there are some specific cases where it really is important to pay attention to exactly what you are eating... if you have a medical condition, or are pregnant, or certain whole classes of foods are unavailable and you need to get those nutrients somehow - but in general no pyramid or government moniker is going to help really. My thought is -and it seems like scientific research is backing this up - is to eat a good variety of foods, and you'll do fine.

[Beth]

Silly pyramid. There it tells me specifically how much of each group/serving sizes etc, but it seems to be assuming that I am not overweight?
I agree, we should eat less junk and more whole foods, for sure. But isn't that what we end up doing w/No-S anyway? We do portion control on the weekdays by eating meals only w/no sweets, snacks, or seconds, and then relaxing a bit on S days. I think maybe that the quality of food may change naturally over time when all foods are "legalized" to eat (ie instead of eating Taco Bell 1/2 pound burritos every day for lunch, you start wanting somthing different on occasion such as chicken with sides of crisp green beans or mouth watering squash)- I remember the first time I was on No-S when one day I SPECIFICALLY wanted some nice green peas for lunch instead of the usual burger, and even drove out of my way to get some. I NEVER dreamed I would crave peas, of all things!