Food-Guide Pyramids Make Us Think How We Eat
The Food Guide Pyramid - that hieroglyphic monument erected in America’s nutrition desert by the food pharaohs in Washington - may not be the perfect way to illustrate the optimum diet, but it has been good enough to spawn a tribe of imitators.
Among its imitators:
The Saturday morning pyramid, based on a study of what’s advertised on weekend children’s TV (top-heavy with sweets, and virtually no fruits and vegetables).
A vegetarian pyramid in which beans and legumes replace meat.
A pyramid illustrating what we actually consume: lots from the sweets/fats group, just the right amount of meat and less than enough from vegetables, fruits and dairy.
One German beverage company even wanted to alter the U.S. Department of Agriculture pyramid to include beer and soda pop, says John Webster, public information director for the USDA’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Information.
“They wanted to create a whole new section for it … and at the base as well,” Webster said. “That’s not exactly what we had in mind.”
The latest pyramid adaptation, called the Traditional Healthy Asian Diet Pyramid, puts plant foods at its base and fish, dairy, sweets and meats near the pinnacle.
It was devised during a recent conference sponsored by Oldways Preservation & Exchange Trust along with Cornell University and Harvard School of Public Health.
Oldways, a nonprofit group that promotes food and cultural traditions, also was instrumental in setting up the so-called Mediterranean diet pyramid. Both it and the Asian pyramid outline healthful diets that seem to protect against chronic ailments such as heart disease and cancer.
The Asian pyramid emphasizes rice and other grains, noodles, breads, corn, fruits, vegetables (including sea vegetables), nuts, seeds, beans, soy foods, even plant-based beverages such as sake, beer, wine and tea. Vegetable oils are allowed in minimal amounts, as are fish and dairy foods (optional use daily), eggs and poultry (weekly) and red meat (monthly).
It’s a model, of course, and not one that reflects any single Asian culture, past or present. India, for instance, traditionally has used dairy products while the Chinese have shied from them. Malaysians, Thais and Vietnamese have consumed coconut, palm and other saturated fats and India uses ghee (butter), but other Asian cultures use very little fat.
In one of the largest population studies of diet and disease, Cornell professor T. Colin Campbell and Dr. Chen Junshi from the Chinese Academy of Preventative Medicine showed that rural Chinese who eat mostly vegetarian with very little fat have few problems with heart disease and some forms of cancer. The China study had great influence on the content of the Asian pyramid.
The Mediterranean pyramid, though also high in plant foods, is heavy in fat, mostly in the form of olive oil. (The International Olive Oil Council has been a major underwriter of Oldways.)
So which pyramid is right?
A couple years of ago at another conference sponsored by Oldways, Campbell and Dr. Frank Sacks, a Harvard Medical School professor and a promoter of the Mediterranean diet, had words over which diet - Mediterranean, or rural Chinese - is more healthful. Finally, they were able to agree there could be more than one “ideal” diet.
The diets of most Americans don’t even come close to fitting the parameters of the USDA pyramid. So if you can follow the vegetarian, the traditional Mediterranean or the traditional Asian pyramid, it probably won’t hurt.
At least it gets you thinking about how you’re eating. And isn’t that the real purpose of the pyramids?