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I'm Curious About This
Posted: Sun May 29, 2011 9:47 pm
by wosnes
Posted: Sun May 29, 2011 10:51 pm
by reinhard
Anything that gets people thinking in terms of plates is progress as far as I'm concerned.
Now if only the emphasis could shift to limiting one's eating to those plates instead of fussing over precisely how they're subdivided.
Reinhard
Posted: Mon May 30, 2011 12:52 am
by Thalia
Wouldn't it be nice if it encouraged people to think of their food as belong ON a plate? the main problem I see with this idea is that the majority of many people's calories now comes from snacks. How to do you divide a bag of Chee-tos or a tube of Go-Gurt into wedges? so people will fuss about their dinner plate proportions, and then not think about the guidelines in between because everyone knows snacks "don't count."
Posted: Mon May 30, 2011 12:18 pm
by BrightAngel
Thanks for sharing this interesting information.
I look forward to seeing the new graphic.
Posted: Mon May 30, 2011 2:32 pm
by Grammy G
Didn't you wonder why "the powers-that-be" used a pyramid instead of a plate in the first place?? I wass teaching health/science to 5th grade when the pyramid push began. I can't tell you how much $$ was put into this project! we had so many visuals and free-bes and lesson plans given to us! ..and the whole thing made no sense! Then there was the revision to a "new and better" pyramid (they just didn't want to admit it was useless to the general public). Neither my students nor their parents had much of idea what a serving size was so that they could fulfill the daily requirements the pyramid required. Most thought that "6 servings a day" meant you had to eat that food six times.. a sandwich would be one serving..a bowl of cereal (no matter what size would be another..so now they must eat 4 more sandwiches to meet their goal!
I think that the plate idea is soo much better.. It is not perfect, but it sure is a giant step in the right direction.
Posted: Mon May 30, 2011 6:45 pm
by Too solid flesh
"Dietary guidelines for Americans"
?
Posted: Tue May 31, 2011 9:45 am
by ThomsonsPier
What? After I replaced all my dinner plates with
these?
Posted: Tue May 31, 2011 12:24 pm
by BrightAngel
ThomsonsPier wrote:What? After I replaced all my dinner plates with
these?
You made me laugh.
Posted: Tue May 31, 2011 1:35 pm
by reinhard
What? After I replaced all my dinner plates with these?
I love it -- the Hegelian synthesis of food pyramid and food plate
Another reason I think the plate/pie chart is a step in the right direction is that it suggests the step after: it doesn't matter how you divide the plate if most of what you eat isn't on it.
Reinhard
Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2011 12:09 am
by Grammy G
Are our No S friends who are not in the good ol' U.S.of A aware of what the "Food Pyramid" is? I see that toosolidflesh and ThompsonsPier seem mystified (I love TP's take on what this could possibly mean!).
I wonder what other government's do, if anything to "direct" their citizens' eating habits... I'd love to hear about them!
Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2011 5:54 am
by SkyKitty
I guess in the UK, the 5 a day campaign is probably the biggest thing. To encourage people to eat at least 5 portions of fruit and vegetables a day. A lot of food packaging is marked with the 5 a day symbol, saying if it contains a portion or 2 portions of fruit or vegetables and some restaurant menus have the symbol and information on.
As a campaign I think it has worked, in that it has made people aware of the need to eat fruit and vegetables and a lot of people actively try to eat their five a day.
We do have something like the food pyramid, I think it's often shown in the round as a pie chart, with what proportions of each food group you should eat, so maybe similar to this new idea, but it's not as big as th e5 a day concept.
Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2011 10:19 am
by ThomsonsPier
Grammy G wrote:Are our No S friends who are not in the good ol' U.S.of A aware of what the "Food Pyramid" is? I see that toosolidflesh and ThompsonsPier seem mystified (I love TP's take on what this could possibly mean!).
I wonder what other government's do, if anything to "direct" their citizens' eating habits... I'd love to hear about them!
My post was purely for humour purposes; I remember the food pyramid from school about eighteen years ago (though the Wikipedia article seems to maintain it wasn't invented at that time), before they replaced it with whatever they're using now in the hope of simplifying it. The result of simplifying it, in my experience, seems to be that no-one has a clue what nutrients foods contain.
The five-a-day thing is big in the UK these days. I tend to ignore any government attempts to influence my meals, as the advice is contradictory between sources (and the same source from day to day at times). Though you'd think it was pretty much foolproof, a recent survey found that a sizeable proportion of the population were confused as to what foods could be counted as part of those five, with a great many thinking five portions of chips (fries) constituted healthy eating as a result. I think the extreme cases were probably more a case of wilful ignorance to further a desire to eat chips than actual misunderstanding, but the problem still exists.
Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2011 1:35 pm
by wosnes
Examples of some plates
The first comment to this article pointed to the Canadian plate as ideal. I like that one, too. But in less than an hour we'll have the new US version.
Grammy G, I did find food pyramids from other countries, but I don't think they're as widely promoted as ours is.
Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2011 2:17 pm
by wosnes
And here it is:
Choose My Plate
I still like the Canadian one better!
Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2011 4:01 pm
by Thalia
That is simple, full of pretty colors, and much better than the pyramid. I'm not sure it's easy to get the nuances of the slightly bigger "veggie" chunk compared to the "fruit" chunk and so forth, but it's definitely an improvement.
It's kind of annoying that they count "oils" as empty calories -- your body NEEDS fat, for healthy skin, digestive motility, raising your "good" cholesterol profile, and absorbtion of fat-soluble vitamins. It's not a magic evil food. I would also change the "grains" group to "grains and starchy vegetables." Sweet corn, potatoes, yams, parsnips and so forth make more sense in this group than in with the green vegetables.
Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2011 5:58 pm
by wosnes
Thalia wrote:
It's kind of annoying that they count "oils" as empty calories -- your body NEEDS fat, for healthy skin, digestive motility, raising your "good" cholesterol profile, and absorbtion of fat-soluble vitamins. It's not a magic evil food. I would also change the "grains" group to "grains and starchy vegetables." Sweet corn, potatoes, yams, parsnips and so forth make more sense in this group than in with the green vegetables.
Well, there's oils, then there's oils. They don't differentiate between things like vegetable oil or corn oil which really are empty calories with olive oil or coconut oil and others which actually have nutrient value and are health promoting.
Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2011 7:33 pm
by mamamia
http://www.choosemyplate.gov/STEPS/step ... eight.html
I hope I'm posting this link right. I was poking around the web site for the new My Plate and found this page. All good advice, but I wish they could have Reinhard write it and give a lesson building new better habits rather than just counting calories in and calories out! I like the Plate though.
Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2011 9:52 pm
by Too solid flesh
Thank you for posting the links, wosnes and mamamia. There is lots of good information, and the plate is far clearer than the food pyramid.
Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2011 11:30 pm
by wosnes
Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2011 11:40 pm
by Grammy G
How long do you think it will be before "The Plate" in all its glorious color and divisions will be in the marketplace in paper, plastic, and fine china? I'm gonna say 3 weeks!
Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2011 4:02 pm
by wosnes
From today's New York Times:
Nutrition Plate Unveiled, Replacing Food Pyramid
I love reading the comments. About the only things people agree should be on the plate are vegetables and fruits. Well, protein, too, but the sources are up for debate.
Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2011 8:11 pm
by oolala53
Why is the protein purple?
Anyway, I like it. It's actually close to what I've been choosing for a few years. No S helped me cut way down on what I was eating not on the plate.
I think it is a HUGE improvement, and restaurants and fast food restaurants can start taking advantage of it by providing meals along those lines and using the plate to tout them. Will everybody choose those meals? No, but it will start getting the image into the public imagination. I know I'm always looking for a similar combination and frustrated that it's so hard to find. I think this should help.
Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2011 10:27 pm
by Grammy G
oolala53 wrote:Why is the protein purple?
I think we understand why veggies are green and grains are brown. Maybe they were afraid red for protein would make the public think of blood and only "red" meats could go here. What do we know..the
experts (who first brought us the pyramid)
have spoken!!
yea..I like the plate better too.
Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2011 10:36 am
by SpiritSong
oolala53 wrote:I think it is a HUGE improvement, and restaurants and fast food restaurants can start taking advantage of it by providing meals along those lines and using the plate to tout them.
That would be cool! Of course, most people would get the plate and look at the "small" protein serving and think the restaurant was being stingy with the steak/chicken/fish.
Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2011 12:50 pm
by Blithe Morning
I'm impressed. Now if we could only figure out a way to address the snacks and the sweets and the seconds...
