| PapaBanucci
|
|
|
This is something I did a good bit of research on last year.
Walter C. Willett, The Harvard School of Public Health
Quote: "At best, the USDA Pyramid offers wishy-washy, scientifically unfounded advice on an absolutely vital topic - what to eat. At worst, the misinformation contributes to overweight, poor health, and unnecessary early deaths. In either case, it stands as a missed opportunity to improve the health of millions of people."
"Competing powerful interests, few of which had your health as a central goal," shaped the USDA Pyramid. In the tug of war between public health and agricultural interests, the USDA naturally favored the agricultural interests. Its Pyramid is actually designed to promote agricultural products.
Quote: "The end result of their tug-of-war is a set of positive, feel-good, all-inclusive recommendations that completely distort what could be the single most important tool for improving your health and the health of the nation."
Quote: Your government really doesn't give a damn about your well being. The USDA Food Guide Pyramid is irrefutable proof of that. It is only outside pressure that on particular occasions pushes the government to concern itself with the well being of its citizens. Although there are many good people in the cognizant agencies who consistently do very good work when they are permitted to, when contrary interests are active and insufficiently opposed, it is those interests that guide government policy, rather than the broader public interest.
Not only is the USDA Food Guide Pyramid devoid of scientific guidance, it now determinedly ignores the growing amount of scientific evidence flowing out of modern epidemiological studies and other scientific data.
Quote: "In the ten years since the USDA Pyramid was designed and built, it has never been updated to reflect the wealth of new information that's become available on diet and health. Nor has it ever been tested to see if it really works. Until now."
There have been absolutely no health benefits shown in modern broad based epidemiological studies from following the USDA eating guidelines, Willett points out.
Its "main and most health damaging faults:"
That all fats are bad and should be restricted to sparing use.
There are two kinds of fats. The monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats found in vegetable oils, nuts, whole grains, and fish "are good for your heart." It is the saturated fats and trans fats that are bad.
That all "complex" carbohydrates are good - indeed, good enough to form the base of the USDA Food Guide Pyramid.
But baked potatoes, refined (white) bread and refined (white) rice are turned into glucose (sugar) by the body and pumped into the bloodstream "almost as fast as it delivers the sugar in a cocktail of pure glucose." These surges of blood sugar and the insulin responses they trigger are now implicated in the processes leading to heart disease and diabetes. The insulin surges ultimately cause rapid drops in blood sugar that induce feelings of hunger, and thus play a role in the overweight conditions that further increase the dangers of heart disease and diabetes.
Beans and whole grains like brown rice and oats and foods made from whole grains like whole wheat pasta and bread take longer to digest - provide steady flows of sugar and insulin response - extend the feelings of fullness - provide fiber and many vitamins and minerals - and thus protect against heart disease and diabetes.
That all proteins are equivalent.
But red meat comes with too much saturated fat and cholesterol. "Red meat may also give you too much iron in a form you absorb whether you need it or not." This may be harmful
Dairy products are advised as a means of fighting the "calcium deficiency emergency" of bone loss.
But Americans get more calcium than residents of any nation except Holland and the Scandinavian nations. There doesn't seem to be any relationship between calcium intake and bone loss, and there are apparent relationships between high dairy consumption and increased risks of prostate and ovarian cancer.
Whole milk is loaded with saturated fats. Skimmed milk is a better choice, and inexpensive supplements and calcium-based antacids are available for those needing additional calcium. However, spinach, broccoli, tofu and calcium fortified foods are best and provide many other nutrients.
Potatoes are included among the favored vegetables.
But potatoes are a carbohydrate - mostly starch that is easily digested. This is alright for thin people who exercise regularly or do regular manual labor, but should be consumed in modest amounts - not as a daily vegetable - by everyone else. A baked potato has a greater impact on blood sugar and insulin spikes "than an equal amount of calories from pure table sugar." Traditional French fries do the same - with "an unhealthy wallop of trans fats" added.
Weight control, exercise, alcohol and vitamins are not mentioned by the USDA Pyramid. |
|
Thu Jan 11, 2007 4:02 am |
|
| PapaBanucci
|
|
|
A great primer would be Marion Nestle's Food Politics.
|
|
Thu Jan 11, 2007 4:12 am |
|
| PapaBanucci
|
|
|
http://whyfiles.org/179food_pyramid/
Ancient Pyramid Crumbles
You've seen it -- gracing health clinic walls, stamped on food labels, alongside articles in glossy fitness magazines. If anything, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Guide Pyramid is ubiquitous. It is also controversial, increasingly so as new science overturns some stubborn dogmas (still eating those fat free cookies?) and even the USDA's newest reports clash with the famous figure.
The pyramid was approved in 1992, as a means to abridge the government's more comprehensive Dietary Guidelines For Americans into one simple, easy-to-understand graphic. It was an instant public relations hit.
The guidelines -- which had themselves been condensed into a 39-page booklet -- are revised every five years and have since been changed to reflect new research. But the pyramid remains unchanged. What's more, some experts say it was never much good to begin with. All this nutritional wrangling has left ordinary Americans with a less than simple message. And it has The Why Files wondering: Is it time to rebuild the pyramid?
Solid Nutrition?
Critics of the USDA food pyramid identify several problems:
The pyramid groups all fats and oils together at the tip, without distinguishing between "good" fats (like olive oil and canola oil, which contain monounsaturated fats) and "bad" fats (saturated fats and trans fatty acids).
Starchy, carbohydrate-packed potatoes are lumped together with the low-calorie, nutrient-rich fleshy and leafy vegetables.
Protein gets only one category in the pyramid. Meat, poultry, fish, dry beans, eggs and nuts are together despite many nutrient differences.
There is no distinction between high-fat and low-fat dairy products.
Bread, cereal, rice and pasta are in a group at the base, despite the health differences between refined carbohydrates (think white rice) and unrefined ones (brown rice).
With obesity and diabetes at record highs, there is no guidance about the daily need for exercise or portion control.
"Since 1992 more and more research has shown that the USDA pyramid is grossly flawed," wrote Walter Willett, a nutritionist at the Harvard School of Public Health. The USDA is now drafting a revision of the pyramid that is scheduled for completion in 2005, but Willett and others aren't sitting silent in the meantime.
Enter Politics
For one thing, many nutritionists aren't sure the USDA can be fully trusted to release guidelines that fairly reflect the best science. The original pyramid was issued under heavy pressure from food industry lobbyists, an influence that still runs strong, says Marion Nestle.
Photo shows breads and grains in a pile of macaroni. Refined carbohydrates like the breads, rice, and pasta shown here can be as dangerous as fat, say some scientists. Photo by Scott Bauer USDA.
Nestle -- who is now the chair of New York University's Department of Nutrition and Food Studies -- managed the production of the first (and only) Surgeon General's Report on Nutrition and Health in 1988. She chronicled the food industry's influence on government dietary guidelines in her book Food Politics, writing, "My first day on the job, I was given the rules: No matter what the research indicated, the report could not recommend 'eat less meat' as a way to reduce intake of saturated fat....The producers of food that might be affected by such advice would complain to their beneficiaries in Congress, and the report would never be published."
In a similar vein, Nestle says, the USDA weighed industry interests along with nutrition science as the food pyramid was built. The National Cattlemen's Association, for instance, launched a heavy campaign to stop promotion of the pyramid's release -- a campaign that resulted in a year long delay in the pyramid's release.
Photo shows colorful spread of fruits and vegetables. The fiber in fruits and vegetables, along with a nutritional wallop, can reduce risk of chronic disease. But all vegetables are not alike, and nutritionists might argue that potatoes don't belong with the elite. Photo by Keith Weller, USDA.
In fact, the USDA has a dual role: to provide nutrition advice to the public and to ensure the success of American agriculture. Accordingly, Nestle says, we should be wary when the USDA -- or any government body -- issues health advice. Earlier this year, the US-based Sugar Association responded with fury and fire when the World Health Organization revised its nutrition guidelines to recommend that people get no more than ten percent of their calories from sugar (For details, see this recent Washington Post story). Does Nestle think that international organizations like the WHO face conflicts of interests similar to those faced by the USDA?
"I don't just think so, I know so," Nestle told The Why Files. "I've seen the Sugar Association correspondence with WHO... What's so surprising about it is not that they are doing such lobbying, but that it is so blatantly self-serving and disregarding of the health of the public." |
|
Thu Jan 11, 2007 4:13 am |
|
| PapaBanucci
|
|
|
Now a bit from a PBS interview with Dan Glickman, the US Secretary of Agriculture at the time...
Question:
A food pyramid is a complicated political compromise?
Answer:
It's complicated. Although I would have to say the government over the years, working within the agencies -- it's not just USDA; the food guide pyramid is also in partnership with the Department of Health and Human Services, although traditionally USDA has taken the lead in all of this -- has tried to kind of cut the baby in half, try to provide information without being terribly controversial on the food production side of the picture.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/diet/themes/pyramid.html |
|
Thu Jan 11, 2007 4:26 am |
|
| PapaBanucci
|
|
|
The Wikipedia even has to say...
Quote: The Harvard School of Public Health proposes the Healthy eating pyramid as an alternative to the Food Guide Pyramid. They include calcium and multi-vitamin supplements as well as moderate amounts of alcohol.
Many observers believe that the Harvard pyramid more closely follows the results of nutrition studies published in peer reviewed scientific journals. Some claim that the USDA was and is unduly influenced by political pressure exerted by food production associations.[1] Nonetheless many agree that as originally published the USDA pyramid was an excellent guide to good nutrition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_guide_pyramid |
|
Thu Jan 11, 2007 4:28 am |
|
| PapaBanucci
|
|
|
Now from Answers.com...
food pyramid or Food Guide Pyramid, diagram used in nutrition education that fits food groups into a triangle and notes that, for a healthful diet, those at the base should be eaten more frequently than those at the top. At the base of the pyramid are breads, cereals, rice, and pasta, with a recommendation that 6 to 11 servings be eaten daily. On the next levels up are the vegetable (3 to 5 servings) and fruit (2 to 4 servings) groups, followed by the dairy group (2 to 3 servings) and a group including meats, eggs, nuts, and dry beans (2 to 3 servings). Fats, oils and sweets are at the apex, with a recommendation that they be eaten sparingly.
The Food Guide Pyramid was adopted by the U.S. Agriculture Department in 1992 as a replacement for the “four food groups” scheme that had been used to teach children about nutrition since the 1950s. The four food groups (the milk group, the meat group, the bread and cereals group, and the vegetable and fruit group) had put a greater emphasis on the consumption of meat and dairy products. The adoption of the food pyramid design was delayed by debate between nutritionists (who felt that it was an effective teaching tool that demonstrated current thinking about the benefits of a low-fat, high–complex carbohydrate diet) and the meat and dairy industries (which felt that the positioning of their products among the foods to be consumed less frequently implied that those foods were unhealthful).
http://www.answers.com/topic/food-guide-pyramid |
|
Thu Jan 11, 2007 4:31 am |
|
| PapaBanucci
|
|
|
Here's another nice quote about the USDA's conflict of interests in publishing the Food Guide...
Quote: It places the USDA in the perhaps absurd position of standing by all of these messages at once: Eat more beef, more pork, more cheese, and choose a diet that is low in saturated fat and cholesterol. One could go on: ...and eat more potatoes, eggs, and soybeans, and still "aim for a healthy weight." Not surprisingly, these seemingly mixed messages have come under some questioning.
http://www.choicesmagazine.org/2004-3/obesity/2004-3-04.htm
"Checkoff Programs" is a great topic to research... |
|
Thu Jan 11, 2007 4:37 am |
|
| PapaBanucci
|
|
|
Dude, I've read the whole thing and marked it all up and cross referenced it.
http://www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines/dga2005/document/
It's a mediocre compromise between nutritionists and food industry interests. |
|
Thu Jan 11, 2007 4:43 am |
|
| PapaBanucci
|
|
|
Whompus wrote: You are so full of SBD. If it is for anyone it is for the farmers. Maybe you don;t know what a farmer is. He's the guy that plants crops and he havests them and then sells them to the guy that sells them at the fruit and vegetable stand or they go to companies like Birdseye who freezes them.
SOme farmers grow grains like oats wheat barley and rice. The mills grind them into flour and we use then to bake bread and cookies.
The we have farmers who raise livestock like cows and hogs and sheep and poultry. We eat those too.
Dude, I grew up on a farm. I've eat raw Rocky Mountain oysters I've cut myself.
Whompus wrote: Unlike SBD, the pyramid stress fresh friuts and vegetables. How is that catering to the food industry? Your Dr Charleton is hooked up with Kraft and Kraft is really spelled C R A P CRAP! So don;t give me that special interest song and dance. People like Dr A and the dead Dr A are the biggest whores on the planet.
Now, there you've got a point. KRAFT sell out whore!!!
But then again that's a kind of an ad hominem. |
|
Thu Jan 11, 2007 5:06 am |
|
| PapaBanucci
|
|
|
Whompus wrote: ... or a feather flock together.
Biff, it's of a feather.
http://www.allwords.com/word-birds%20of%20a%20feather.html |
|
Thu Jan 11, 2007 4:50 pm |
|
| ladybugnessa
|
|
|
Whompus wrote: PapaBanucci wrote: Whompus wrote: ... or a feather flock together.
Biff, it's of a feather.
http://www.allwords.com/word-birds%20of%20a%20feather.html
It is really pathetic that all you can do is make fun of a typo. How does that show that Agatston is not a whore?
actually I THINK that's who he meant originally. |
|
Thu Jan 11, 2007 8:08 pm |
|
| Doc_plus25
|
|
|
PapaBanucci wrote:
Dude, I grew up on a farm. I've eat raw Rocky Mountain oysters I've cut myself.
:shock: Eeeiww! I seriously hope you're kidding.
PapaBanucci wrote:
But then again that's a kind of an ad hominem.
Makes you wonder whether he's a disgruntled ex-colleague who didn't get a piece of the pie. :roll: |
|
Thu Jan 11, 2007 8:56 pm |
|
| ladybugnessa
|
|
|
Doc_plus25 wrote:
Makes you wonder whether he's a disgruntled ex-colleague who didn't get a piece of the pie. :roll:
oh please, he doesn't have the necessary skills for that. |
|
Thu Jan 11, 2007 9:00 pm |
|
| PapaBanucci
|
|
|
Doc_plus25 wrote: PapaBanucci wrote:
Dude, I grew up on a farm. I've eat raw Rocky Mountain oysters I've cut myself.
:shock: Eeeiww! I seriously hope you're kidding.
Actually that was a typo. But I did indeed mean fresh, not frozen.
However since this is the USDA guidelines thread, maybe I did use the right word.
Do some homework on what "fresh" means in the supermarket. You might be surprised... |
|
Thu Jan 11, 2007 10:44 pm |
|
| Doc_plus25
|
|
|
ladybugnessa wrote: Doc_plus25 wrote:
Makes you wonder whether he's a disgruntled ex-colleague who didn't get a piece of the pie. :roll:
oh please, he doesn't have the necessary skills for that.
Good point. Of course. |
|
Fri Jan 12, 2007 3:55 am |
|