My limited understanding of geometry may be responsible for my utter confusion over the new USDA food pyramid released last week. Labeled MyPyramid, for reasons not fully explained, the new diagram turns the old version on its side, though the pointy end is still up, using vertical rather than horizontal lines to separate food groups.
These vertical bands vary in width and are printed in color, the designation of which makes less sense to me than the Homeland Security terrorist alert colors. Oils, formerly lumped with fats and sweets at the apex, are a narrow band of yellow, relatively benign in terms of terror alerts. Fruits, nutritious and fat free, are a wider band of red, terror time in spades on the Tom Ridge color scale.
Milk is a broad band of blue, and grains, widest of all, are orange, signaling what, an elevated alert? Meats and beans are purple, maybe P is for protein, but why they are lumped together is a mystery since their effect on the body is virtually opposite. Meat is a prime source of artery-clogging saturated fat while the fiber in beans helps to keep one’s blood vessels clear of plaque. The vegetable band is green, the only color code that makes any kind of sense to me.
It should be noted that most food industry groups are pleased with the new icon, except cattle producers, of course, who wish their band was wider, and animal rights groups, who wish it was narrower or not even mentioned.
According to the USDA’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, it spent four years and $2.4 million on the redesign, prompted by the nation’s alarming rise in obesity and related illness. The recommendations were released in January in a booklet, “Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005.”
To be fair, there are a few improvements. The old pyramid called for up to 11 servings of bread, cereal, rice and pasta per day. Surely they didn’t mean one could eat six plates of spaghetti, a bowl of white rice and four slices of Wonder bread. Does anybody actually know how much a serving is? At least the new guide measures things in cups and ounces.
However, much of the confusion comes in the dozen different pyramids, from which consumers may choose one that is right for their age, sex, height and lifestyle. Hence the name MyPyramid. Or is this another manifestation of the administration’s “ownership society”?
In any event, it seems one needs a computer to figure out which pyramid is actually his or her own (MyPyramid.gov on the Web). This is an awful lot of trouble for the average overweight American who eats a Big Mac and fries, usually supersized, every day because the lunch hour is short, fast food is nearby, cheap and, well, fast.
A local garage mechanic with a supersized girth he wants to shrink asked me to help him work out a diet he could live with and afford. He obviously had no interest in going online to pick out his very own MyPyramid. I figured the easiest way to help was to find out what he eats now and how much and then make some simple substitutions.
I was horrified. Turns out he drinks about eight cups of coffee with several spoons of sugar in them every day. I showed him my little bottle of Stevia (an herbal sweetener). He says it tastes fine but he would have to drive 45 miles to a health food store to buy it, then pack it around in his pocket. For breakfast he eats any kind of dry cereal with whole milk, then grabs doughnuts to have with the other cups of coffee. I tell him he could make real progress just by substituting low-fat milk and a low-fat, low-sugar, high fiber brand of cereal. But these are not available at the local cafe, much easier to grab an Egg McMuffin at the drive-through.
He says he once lost weight on the Atkins diet, high protein and fat, low carbs, but it was hard to stick with it. I explain that’s a good thing because one can lose 10 pounds or so in a couple of weeks this way, but staying on such a diet plays hell with your cholesterol levels and stresses the kidneys.
I asked the mechanic if he ever looked at the nutrition labels on food packages. He said not often because he didn’t really understand them. He also doesn’t understand why the new pyramid gives the widest band to grains, formerly lumped with bread, cereal, pasta and rice as the most desirable food group. No matter that the difference between whole grains (brown) and refined (white) was never made clear. I realize he is not a candidate for the Internet option. The USDA really should find a way to get this information to people who are poor, computer illiterate or not sufficiently motivated.
This guy wants a simple solution to a complicated problem and the new food pyramid just isn’t it. When it comes to food, he wants fast, filling and cheap. Understanding the nutrition guidelines will not help him or the average worker (and unmarried person) who eats out two or three meals a day.
So keep it simple and make a Do Not Buy list. Don’t buy doughnuts, packaged pastry or cookies, chips or deep-fried anything, including chicken and fish. Also, give up forever full-fat dairy stuff. The low-fat alternatives are fine, even nonfat cream cheese is great on a bagel. Trade sodas, fruit drinks, even designer waters with high fructose corn syrup for plain water or 100 percent fruit juice (not nectar). Substitute apples, pears, bananas and oranges (available even at mini-marts) for chips and other salty snacks. And don’t supersize anything.
I tell the mechanic to forget the damn pyramid. If you need fast food, just walk over to Subway (about 400 yards) and order a turkey sandwich on a whole-wheat bun with all the lettuce, tomato, cucumber and onion they’ll put on it.
This he thinks he could do.