by Michael Murray, N.D. and Joseph Pizzorno, N.D.
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| The Optimal Health Food Pyramid
We do like the concept of graphically illustrating what constitutes a healthful diet, so we are offering our version of the Eating Right Pyramid: the Optimal Health food pyramid.
The Optimal Health food pyramid incorporates the best aspects from two of the most healthful diets ever studied: the traditional Mediterranean diet and the traditional Asian diet. It also more clearly defines what the healthy components within the categories are and stresses the importance of regular consumption of vegetable oils as part of a healthy diet. |
Ray D. Strand
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 Willett, chief of nutrition and preventive medicine at Harvard Medical School, proposed in his book Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy that we must rethink the food pyramid the USDA recommends. The bottom rung should be low-glycemic carbohydrates, while high-glycemic foods (white bread, white flour, pasta, rice, and potatoes) belong at the top of the food pyramid with all the sweets."
Everyone realizes how bad sweets are for diabetics. But few realize that high-glycemic foods raise blood sugar much faster than eating candy does. |
Byron J. Richards, CCN
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 The Five Rules are far more important than what the food pyramid may have to offer. There is nothing very innovative about the food pyramid. People agree with eating a variety of food. Most agree with not overindulging on fat, junk food, and sweets. These basics are already known.
The problem with the food pyramid is that the amount of carbohydrates in this diet plan causes individuals who are heading in the direction of insulin resistance and leptin resistance to worsen, especially when they get into excess simple sugar consumption. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 I didn't necessarily follow the original food pyramid when it was out there, but I always had a basic idea of what it was. I've noticed that lately the USDA has come out with its own new food pyramid. So, with this new food pyramid out, why would anyone need to follow the Honest Food Guide or even look at it?
Mike: Excellent question. |
J. Douglas Bremner
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 The primary source of government information on eating healthy is its widely distributed food pyramid, which is constructed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). More recently, the USDA has created a new food plan called MyPyramid, which is an improvement over earlier versions that were heavy on meat and dairy, and complicated to use. Because the pyramid plans are so widely known in this country, many consumers see the agency's primary function as developing a food plan for the nation. |
| This is not to be confused with the food pyramid, developed by the USDA in the 1950s, which tells us how much of the different food groups, like fruits, vegetables, cereals, meat, and dairy products, we need.) Most of us are familiar with the RDA from our childhood days of reading the back of our cereal boxes during breakfast time. What most people don't understand is that the authors of the RDA only knew what degree of deprivation caused illness.
The USDA didn't really know the minimum of what you could take and still be healthy. |
Byron J. Richards, CCN
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| There is nothing very innovative about the food pyramid. People agree with eating a variety of food. Most agree with not overindulging on fat, junk food, and sweets. These basics are already known.
The problem with the food pyramid is that the amount of carbohydrates in this diet plan causes individuals who are heading in the direction of insulin resistance and leptin resistance to worsen, especially when they get into excess simple sugar consumption. |
Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., C.N.S.
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 Anyone remember the first edition of the food pyramid?)
One year after the ADA statement, a study published in the journal Diabetes divided 180 people with type 2 diabetes into three groups— one group received 200 meg of chromium picol-inate a day, one group received 1,000 meg, and the third group got a placebo. Supplemental chromium was shown to have dramatic effects on glucose and insulin variables and "significant, sustained reductions in diabetic symptoms were especially noted in those who received 1,000 meg per day."
Insulin's Little Helper
So what's the deal with chromium? |
| Department of Agriculture's (USDA) food pyramid and against the officially sanctioned high-carbohydrate, high-sugar diet have experienced this kind of resistance before. It's pretty hard to get a fair hearing for a low-carbohydrate diet when a good portion of the U.S. economy is based upon the very foods we were telling people to eat less of—corn, wheat, soy, and sugar, for example.
But I digress.
WANTED: A NEW MODEL FOR HEALING
The conventional medical model of disease is what scientists call a paradigm— a way of looking at illness. |
Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., M.D.
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 As long ago as 1991, for example, proposed changes in the food pyramid would have relegated meat and dairy foods to lesser importance. But by the time the lobbying was finished, the USDA agreed on a misleading compromise for the new proposals that still emphasized consumption of animal protein.
Not much has changed since then. Here are some examples, drawn from a written critique I delivered to the 2005 Food Guidelines Committee:
1. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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| I've noticed that lately the USDA has come out with its own new food pyramid. So, with this new food pyramid out, why would anyone need to follow the Honest Food Guide or even look at it?
Mike: Excellent question. The first part of that answer is that this is a replacement chart for the USDA's official food guide pyramid, and as most people know, in the spring of 2005, the USDA came out with a new food guide to replace the old food groups/food guide pyramid that had been around for decades. But what most people don't know is that the USDA paid $2. |
Robert Hass, M.S.
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 I've revised this corporately corrupt food pyramid (Fig. 3.2) to portray the correct hierarchy of the world's healthiest foods—the ones that can prevent and defeat cancer, heart disease, and diabetes.
If you want to live to see your grandchildren's children, use the Permanent Remissions Phytofood pyramid to help you create a new way of eating for optimal health and longevity.
HOW TO USE THE PERMANENT REMISSIONS PHYTOFOOD PYRAMID GUIDE
The Phytofood Pyramid Guide recommends phytonutrient-rich food groups based on the number of suggested daily servings (Table 3.1). |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 Apparently you have to actually log onto a website to get your food pyramid, because there are 12 different food pyramids now. Do you think all these families that claim to have no money, that are living in poverty, are going to log on? You think they've got a couple of PCs sitting around the house, or a Mac? Are they just going to log on and print this out on their color laser printer? Is that what the USDA thinks they're going to do?
Let's suppose they somehow manage to do that. Well, what advice do they actually get? They’re told, "Drink more milk! Eat more meat! |
Ray D. Strand
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| The bottom rung should be low-glycemic carbohydrates, while high-glycemic foods (white bread, white flour, pasta, rice, and potatoes) belong at the top of the food pyramid with all the sweets."
Everyone realizes how bad sweets are for diabetics. But few realize that high-glycemic foods raise blood sugar much faster than eating candy does. When I finally convince my diabetic patients to eat low-glycemic carbohydrates combined with good protein and good fat, their diabetic control improves dramatically, and their bodies become more sensitive to their own insulin. |
Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., C.N.S.
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 It's worth noting that the old (thankfully discredited) food pyramid, which had six to eleven servings of grains at the bottom of the structure, was suspiciously similar to the pyramid used by farmers to fatten up cattle. If you want to fatten up farm animals, you feed them grain, not grass. Think it's all that different with people? Think again. While the urban legend is that "whole grains" raise blood sugar much more slowly than their refined cousins, an examination of the glycemic index and glycemic load tables shows this is not always the case. |
Craig Pepin-Donat
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 Department of Agriculture, food pyramid... for adults and kids, provides dietary guidelines and advice about making smart choices from every food group.
About Pediatrics — Nutrition for Children www.pediatrics.about.com/od/nutrition/Nutrition_for_Children.htm This site offers a wide variety of articles and resources based on health and nutrition for kids.
Nutrition.gov www.nutrition.gov
Access to government info on food and nutrition for consumers.
FDA — Revealing Transfats www.fda.gov/ fdac/features/ 2003/503_fats. |
Sue Palmer
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 It isn't as if we don't know what a balanced diet looks like - governments around the world produce guidelines like our food pyramid, often with flashy illustrations. Canada has its food rainbow; Germany its dietary circle (with a healthy glass of water in the middle) and China a food pagoda. In 2005, the US Department of Agriculture upgraded its food pyramid into a multicoloured, individualised animation - MyPyramid. This revamp was hailed by nutritionist Michael Jacobson as 'the strongest dietary guidelines yet produced'. |
Michael Pollan
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 Fair questions, though it does seem to me a symptom of our present confusion about food that people would feel the need to consult a journalist, or for that matter a nutritionist or doctor or government food pyramid, on so basic a question about the conduct of our everyday lives as humans. I mean, what other animal needs professional help in deciding what it should eat? |
Brenda Watson and Leonard Smith
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 Even the food pyramid requires three to five servings of vegetables and two to three servings of fruit daily.
Unfortunately, too many people disregard these daily guidelines. The enzymatic level of fresh foods, such as fruits and vegetables, is reduced by long-term storage, pesticides, and toxins in the water and soil. As we age, the number of enzymes and their activity levels decrease. This is why supplementation with enzymes is helpful. |
Michael Pollan
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| McGovern "Goals" but also in the National Academy of Sciences report, the dietary guidelines of the American Heart Association and the American Cancer Society and the U.S. food pyramid bears direct responsibility for creating the public health crisis that now confronts us.
Even if we accept the epidemic of obesity and diabetes as the unintended consequence of the war against dietary fat— collateral damage, you might say—what about the intended consequence of that campaign: the reduction of heart disease? |
| It embodies the latest nutritional wisdom from science and government (which in its most recent food pyramid recommends that at least half our consumption of grain come from whole grains) but leavens that wisdom with the commercial recognition that American eaters (and American children in particular) have come to prefer their wheat highly refined—which is to say, cottony soft, snowy white, and exceptionally sweet on the tongue. |
J. Douglas Bremner
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| That has always been the problem with USDA recommendations, particularly regarding the food pyramid. The USDA's interest in promoting agribusiness is at odds with its attempts to recommend a healthful diet. Historically, lobbyists for the dairy and cattle industries have pressured the USDA to include recommendations for dietary intakes of meat and dairy products that are not always in the best interests of our health. |
David W. Grotto, RD, LDN
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 The dietary icon that came from those guidelines is the latest food pyramid, otherwise known as "MyPyramid." The new pyramid shows that all food groups are important in a healthy diet.
What You Will See in This Book
101 Foods That Could Save Your Life! will reveal that many of the delicious foods that we often reserve for those special occasions, like cranberries and sweet potatoes, need to be invited back on a more regular basis. |
Mary-Ann Shearer
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 But if you feel the need to follow a pyramid when it comes to choosing food, the University of California's food pyramid is probably the best; this is the one with fresh fruits and vegetables at the base. The one with grains at the base appears to be put together by the breakfast cereal industry. In the last year we have seen the introduction of twelve food pyramids with rainbow-colored, vertical stripes, just to confuse us further. You'd be better off ignoring all the pyramids, following the guidelines in this book, and listening to your body! |
Connie Bennett, C.H.H.C. with Stephen T. Sinatra, M.D.
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 News Analysis: The Skinny on Food in 2005—Expect a New food pyramid, Labeling
Changes to Reveal Artery-Clogging Ingredients, and More Fights over What Constitutes a
Healthy Diet." Business Week Online, December 29, 2004. http://www.businessweek.com/ bwdaily/dnflash/dec2004/nf20041229_0061_db016 .htm.
Greene, Bob. Get with the Program: Getting Real about Your Weight, Health, and Emotional Weil-Being. New York: Simon &c Schuster, 2002.
Groom, Nichola. "South Beach Diet Creator Shuns 'Low-Carb' Label." http://story.news.yahoo. com /news ? |
| Does the food pyramid Diet Lead to Additional Diseases in Diabetics? Research Says. . .
Yes." Native American Times, April 22, 2004. http://nativetimes.com/index.asp?action= displayarticle&article_id=4329. Gross, Lee S., Li Li, Earl S. Ford, and Simin Liu. "Increased Consumption of Refined Carbohydrates and the Epidemic of Type 2 Diabetes in the United States: An Ecologic Assessment." American
Journal of Clinical Nutrition 79 (2004): 774-79. Harvard School of Public Health. "Frequent Consumption of Sugar-Sweetened Beverages Linked to
Greater Weight Gain and Type 2 Diabetes in Women. |
Elaine Magee
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 After a 12-week nutritional intervention promoting the Mediterranean food pyramid with 71 healthy women, researchers from Laval University in Quebec reported that the women showed an 11 percent decrease in low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol. Now, that's what I call instant gratification! Plus, the results revealed that the more closely participants followed the diet, the greater the decrease. Increases in the servings of two food groups in particular were individually associated with decreases in oxidized LDL concentrations?fruits and vegetables!
Improve blood pressure-and more. |
James Dowd and Diane Stafford
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 This kind of research has influenced public health policy, so we get a recommendation of three servings of low-fat dairy a day-—and it's now part of our food pyramid. The issues that haven't been addressed are: Why are three-fourths of the world's populations lactose intolerant, and how are North Americans supposed to comply with this recommendation? Would this dairy benefit evaporate if people normalized their vitamin D levels?
We're the only animals on the planet who consume other animals' milk as adults. |
Mary-Ann Shearer
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| As research started to show how our health had deteriorated and that we needed to be eating simpler with less protein and less processed fats, the food industry attempted to change things by introducing the food pyramid. Here there is anything from five to eleven food groups just to make sure everyone receives a share of the market. Has it helped? Absolutely not! But if you feel the need to follow a pyramid when it comes to choosing food, the University of California's food pyramid is probably the best; this is the one with fresh fruits and vegetables at the base. |
Michael Pollan
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| EAT RIGHT, GET FATTER
In fact, we did change our eating habits in the wake of the new guidelines, endeavoring to replace the evil fats at the top of the food pyramid with the good carbs spread out at the bottom. The whole of the industrial food supply was reformulated to reflect the new nutritional wisdom, giving us low-fat pork, low-fat Snackwell's, and all the low-fat pasta and high-fructose (yet low-fat!) corn syrup we could consume. Which turned out to be quite a lot. |
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