Have you ever read the suggested servings printed on the food pyramid and actually imagined what they would entail? Specifically, since it never offers advice on how to balance the numbers, I'm assuming a "healthy" diet can include the higher end of the ranges given.
My favorite, which I see most frequently, is that for fruits and vegetables: 5-9 servings per day. 9 servings?! If I ate 9 servings of fruit a day, that's all I would eat. That's 3 servings per meal, and coming up with such an impressive array of produce, three times a day, strikes me as more of a challenge than it does a reasonable diet.
Then we have bread and starch: 6-11 servings. Now, maybe I missed something, but 11 servings per day is almost 4 servings per meal, and unless my sole intent were to spite Dr. Atkins himself, I don't think this sounds like a healthy program. There's a reason diets tend to be low-carb.
And lets not forget meat! 2-3 servings a day... now that's an American meal plan! Bacon for breakfast, chicken for lunch, and steak for dinner. Fry 'em up, Dan!
The only sector of the pyramid that seems reasonable is dairy, at 2-3 servings per day. Granted, I'm a fan of cereal for breakfast and a glass of milk with dinner, but at least you won't gain too much weight by drinking 2%.
So all in all, it seems to me that the goal of the food pyramid is obesity through unreasonably high intake of food. Now, I'm not sure what it is they had in mind, but I sure would like to think there's a better explanation than this.
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3 comments:
First off, do you realize how small a serving actually is? If you took the average meal served in a restaurant it should technically be divided up amongst three people. Servings ain't that big, yo.
And, out of curiousity... is this the new or old food pyramid?
--tina
To be fair, most of this entry was a reckless extrapolation from the concept of 9 servings of fruit a day, which I would certainly consider to be in excess. Assuming, say, 1 apple = 1 serving, you would need an apple, an orange, and a banana per meal. But you are right, a real-world "serving" of meat and/or bread is likely well beyond the nutritionally defined serving. This serves only to highlight, though, that the food pyramid without proper instructions is not a complete set of guidelines.
As far as "new or old" is concerned, I'm referencing the pyramid they print on foodstuffs today, i.e. the food pyramid on the bag of bread in my kitchen right now. I didn't know there was new and old, but it doesn't surprise me. They've added an ocean and taken away a planet since I was last in school, so why not redefine food as well?
I also like the fact that 'knowing a little bit about everything' is part of your job description now. Well done.
hahahhahaha.
the old food pyramid is as we remember, a pyramid with the sections stacked upon each other. today's has each of the groups side by side in eaqual importance, with a man running up stairs going up the side of the pyramid to encourage a healthy lifestyle with healthy eating. to find out what your intake should be more precisely visit:
mypyramid.gov
=D tina
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