{"id":218,"date":"2005-04-19T18:50:06","date_gmt":"2005-04-20T02:50:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/songoose.com\/?p=18"},"modified":"2025-07-22T18:38:00","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T18:38:00","slug":"the-new-food-pyramid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.mikemadaio.com\/?p=218","title":{"rendered":"The New Food Pyramid"},"content":{"rendered":"

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has finally released their updated food pyramid. Check out mypyramid.gov<\/a> for your “personalized” pyramid. <\/p>\n

My first thoughts are that this is a huge improvement over the previous pyramid, which has become insanely out of date. Gone is the absurd reliance on all grains, including refined breads and pastas. Gone is the insistence that all oils and fats should be used sparingly. Instead, the new system describes a “Healthy Diet” as one that:<\/p>\n

* Emphasizes fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and fat-free or low-fat milk and milk products;
\n * Includes lean meats, poultry, fish, beans, eggs, and nuts; and
\n * Is low in saturated fats, trans fats, cholesterol, salt (sodium), and added sugars.<\/p>\n

The food pyramid, while still utilized here, is presented with a twist: individualized plans are based on a person’s age, gender and amount of daily activity. At first this makes perfect sense, because everyone is different and needs to find the diet that works best for them. However, I also have some fears that the added complexity of this individual plan may be a problem for many Americans who have attention spans shorter than your average TV commercial. If people do take the time to research mypyramid.gov, however, they should find some good information that will encourage a healthy lifestyle. <\/p>\n

After a cursory look at the site, here are some pros and cons that I see:<\/p>\n

Pros:<\/p>\n

– Distinction between whole grains and refined grains
\nI’m no scientist, but the way I understand it, refined grains, such as white bread, white rice and pasta, and potatoes, are quickly broken down by the body into sugar. This raises insulun levels and makes you get hungry again much faster. Whole grains, on the other hand, take far longer to digest, keeping you satisifed longer. In addition, whole grains contain more vitamins and minerals and are proven to impact long term health.<\/p>\n

– Distinction between healthy fats and bad fats
\nOils that are low in saturated fat and cholesterol but high in mono and poly fats are an extremely important part of any diet. Saturated fats and Trans fats, should be avoided at all costs. The old pyramid didn’t make this distinction at all.<\/p>\n

– Explanations on why it is important to eat whole grains, fruits & vegetables and healthy oils.
\nDetailed explanations on why these are the most important parts of any diet.<\/p>\n

– Tips for eating more whole grains, veggies, etc.
\nEven when armed with the information, its often hard to find healthy choices in this country. Several pages on the site attempt to help with this problem.<\/p>\n

– NO LOW CARB B.S.!!!
\nWhole grains and legumes are some of the most important things to include in your daily diet, and the low carb fad eliminates much of these essential foods. Some people have short-term success with weight loss on this diet, but the bottom line is that the only way to really lose weight is to eat less and exercise more; at the very least we should be eating for our long term health, not for short term weight loss.<\/p>\n

Cons:<\/p>\n

– The biggest problem that jumps out at me is that red meats is in the same group as poultry, fish and nuts. This is extremely misleading, especially to all these low carb fadders out there. Red meat is extremely high in saturated fats, while poultry has much less fat. Fish and nuts are even better for you — they have little (to no) saturated fat and are high in mono and poly fats. Red meat really should be used sparingly, while fish should be relied on as a major part of a healthy diet. Combining all these different foods into one group is totally confusing.<\/p>\n

– In vegetables, the biggest sub-group is “other vegetables”, with little explanation as to what this means or what the benefits of eating these veggies is. Included here are tomatoes, green beans, asparagus and peppers, to name a few. What are these “other” vegetables and why should i be eating them? They’re obviously a huge part of any healthy diet, so just dumping them in the “other” category seems to be a bit half-hearted.<\/p>\n

– As mentioned before, the added complexity of individual plans worry me; people are lazy and will rely on pre-conceived notions of healthy diets (i.e. the old pyramid) rather than take the time to learn something new. I’d like to see more emphasis on the “Healthy Diet” as described at the top of this post. (It took me a good while to find that description buried within the site. Why is it not at the top of the front page?)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has finally released their updated food pyramid. Check out mypyramid.gov for your “personalized” pyramid. My first thoughts are that this is a huge improvement over the previous pyramid, which has become insanely out of date. Gone is the absurd reliance on all grains, including refined breads and pastas. Gone is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.mikemadaio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.mikemadaio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.mikemadaio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.mikemadaio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.mikemadaio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=218"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.mikemadaio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":629,"href":"https:\/\/archive.mikemadaio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218\/revisions\/629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.mikemadaio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.mikemadaio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.mikemadaio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}