Do you remember the food pyramid? I have no idea if the food pyramid is still taught in school, but it was taught in my school. Every classroom in my formative years had a poster, not dissimilar to the image below, pasted firmly to the wall. School officials, and presumably their superiors, could have had only one goal in mind: indoctrination. Simply put, no other explanation makes sense for children too young to pack their own lunches or make their own dinners. Nor is there any reason to believe that commonly accepted advertising principles would apply, like advertising to children to get them to pressure their parents into buying a certain toy. The fact is that the food pyramid was not a power ranger action-figure; it was plain, boring even. But there the posters were — on my classroom wall.
Yeah, I always laugh about the old food pyramid. Eat lot of carbs! Bread, pasta, rice, chips -yummy! That worked out well. Now we are even fatter and more diabetic. Nailed that one.
I swear this triggered me! I was a plump kid. Mum often talked about the "Food Rules". It was self defeating. When I was pregnant the first time, I tried harder. 10 servings of bread and cereals made me want to hurl.
The there were the various revisions, which told me that they were making it up as they went along...
I now eat low carb and am finally feeling a bit better
Unless you eat so wrong that you give yourself rickets o scurvy or something like that, it's real simple (and that's probably why neither governement nor market forces endorse it).
Energy in vs. energy out. If you take in more than you use up, you grow fat. It's that simple. If you happen to be one of the very few with an actual medical condition affecting this (as opposed a self-diganosed one) it's still true. You just have to adjust your I/O to fit.
And that's the core problem: you the individual must own up to what you are doing, even when it's stuff with long term consequences from many small individual actions. It's not one helping too many, just as it isn't one drink or one cigarette or one toke or one tab or whatever. It's all of it put together, and it's on you.
Soon as you blame someone else (even when it is someone elses fault too, as is the case with the food triangle) you hinder yourself from improving.
It's unfair. It's due to socio-economic differences. Everyone else goes to Wendy's after work. It's eco-friendly tofurkey so I can have a couple of beers extra. I'm overworked. I'm a singel parent with a full time job, you don't know what its like. What. Ever. It's still on you (unless you're a child, then it's on your parents.)
Harsh, yes. Also, true. Judging? No - your body your choice, just don't blame anyone else for what is up to you.
The food pyramid marketing worked because it mirrored Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which had been pushed on the Boomers as children in the wake of WWII and the fear of the Cold War - you never knew when everyone might die, so treat them right.
The major problem with ANY promoted and one-sized "health cure" is that it ignores everything else about a person. The food pyramid, using grains (especially those heavy in carbohydrates) as the base, ignored what those kinds of foods do to your body (IE: bread is ALWAYS the "cheat" for a diabetic and can be pretty hard on individuals with inflammatory issues - especially now that a large percentage of wheat is "winter (hybrid) wheat" which is actually very hard for your body to digest.).
I look at the food pyramid now and groan. Because given our over processed foods (including GM), it CAN'T work. Our bodies aren't designed for all the processed and GM foods that are out there. If you CAN (and it's hard, because "organic" doesn't mean it's NOT over-processed), it's best to keep all things in balance. If you cut all the processed foods out, then you will do far better, no matter what you eat.
Jestre, Check out this mind blowing Malcolm Gladwell podcast on what drove the move away from saturated fats and towards laboratory made trans fats (which turned out to be even worse) and finally to unsaturated fats (and the buried study that really disproves the case for unsaturated fats) in a story involving McDonald’s French fries and a millionaire taking out an ad in the super bowl - can’t make this stuff up. Whoops here’s the link https://www.pushkin.fm/episode/mcdonalds-broke-my-heart/
Yes, the food pyramid is mostly upside-down - except for the oils and added sugars. It's just one more example of a government intervention that has been hopelessly misguided at best, and downright harmful at worst. Since it was introduced in 1979, rates of nearly all chronic diseases (including diabetes, heart attacks, stroke and cancer) have gone through the roof.
We have a food industry that pretends to nourish us but makes us sick, and a pharma industry that pretends to cure us but makes us even sicker. But look on the bright side: their profits are in excellent health.
Great analogy. This is another great example of reasons not to trust the government. Maybe back then it was reasonable enough to presume they were simply ignorant about what constitutes a healthy diet, but comparing that to todays not-so-subtle push of the vaccines under the guise that they’re interested in our health, it has become glaringly obvious that they would prefer us to be sick, relying on big Pharma drugs to keep our diabetes, excess weight, heart issues, autoimmunity (the list is a mile long) under control.
Several years back, I read a book by Marion Nestle called "Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat."
Around the same time, our pediatrician was scolding me for giving my children whole milk (and I didn't even tell her it was raw) and telling me she is seeing high cholesterol even in little kids. (Kids these days are drinking too much whole milk, I guess, more than their grandparents?)
I wonder if those of us who were inclined to be skeptical of official nutrition recommendations were more likely to "follow the money" when it came to the "health" recommendations made (and not made) during the covid pandemic.
It is true that there is not any one-size-fits-all solution. I have T2DM, so i "should" eat low carb, but my stomach protests. I digest my meals best when they are a mixture of carbs, proteins and veggies/fruits. I love fruit. I'd rather skip a meal than eat meat or eggs without starch. Yuck. Is it a habit or something? Wrong texture? I do not know. Anyway, there is something undoable about low carb for me. When some people praise keto or low carb, I feel somewhat inferior (especially as a diabetic) that I can't do it.
There are definitely still some requirements in place that are inflexible. I had to sign a nutrition opt out form because my kids don't like milk, and unless I opt out, their school is required to provide minimum 12oz per day. I just find it odd that it does not matter that they eat other foods that offer the same nutrients.
It's what you get with one size fits all approach, they want to monitor everything but when that's too complex you just get some dumb rule instead.
Yeah, I always laugh about the old food pyramid. Eat lot of carbs! Bread, pasta, rice, chips -yummy! That worked out well. Now we are even fatter and more diabetic. Nailed that one.
I swear this triggered me! I was a plump kid. Mum often talked about the "Food Rules". It was self defeating. When I was pregnant the first time, I tried harder. 10 servings of bread and cereals made me want to hurl.
The there were the various revisions, which told me that they were making it up as they went along...
I now eat low carb and am finally feeling a bit better
Unless you eat so wrong that you give yourself rickets o scurvy or something like that, it's real simple (and that's probably why neither governement nor market forces endorse it).
Energy in vs. energy out. If you take in more than you use up, you grow fat. It's that simple. If you happen to be one of the very few with an actual medical condition affecting this (as opposed a self-diganosed one) it's still true. You just have to adjust your I/O to fit.
And that's the core problem: you the individual must own up to what you are doing, even when it's stuff with long term consequences from many small individual actions. It's not one helping too many, just as it isn't one drink or one cigarette or one toke or one tab or whatever. It's all of it put together, and it's on you.
Soon as you blame someone else (even when it is someone elses fault too, as is the case with the food triangle) you hinder yourself from improving.
It's unfair. It's due to socio-economic differences. Everyone else goes to Wendy's after work. It's eco-friendly tofurkey so I can have a couple of beers extra. I'm overworked. I'm a singel parent with a full time job, you don't know what its like. What. Ever. It's still on you (unless you're a child, then it's on your parents.)
Harsh, yes. Also, true. Judging? No - your body your choice, just don't blame anyone else for what is up to you.
The food pyramid marketing worked because it mirrored Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which had been pushed on the Boomers as children in the wake of WWII and the fear of the Cold War - you never knew when everyone might die, so treat them right.
The major problem with ANY promoted and one-sized "health cure" is that it ignores everything else about a person. The food pyramid, using grains (especially those heavy in carbohydrates) as the base, ignored what those kinds of foods do to your body (IE: bread is ALWAYS the "cheat" for a diabetic and can be pretty hard on individuals with inflammatory issues - especially now that a large percentage of wheat is "winter (hybrid) wheat" which is actually very hard for your body to digest.).
I look at the food pyramid now and groan. Because given our over processed foods (including GM), it CAN'T work. Our bodies aren't designed for all the processed and GM foods that are out there. If you CAN (and it's hard, because "organic" doesn't mean it's NOT over-processed), it's best to keep all things in balance. If you cut all the processed foods out, then you will do far better, no matter what you eat.
I remember the food pyramid as an example of universally accepted "science" that was fabricated to please certain "stakeholders".
Ever seen Fat Fiction, the documentary?
It explains some of the history.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUADs-CK7vI
Jestre, Check out this mind blowing Malcolm Gladwell podcast on what drove the move away from saturated fats and towards laboratory made trans fats (which turned out to be even worse) and finally to unsaturated fats (and the buried study that really disproves the case for unsaturated fats) in a story involving McDonald’s French fries and a millionaire taking out an ad in the super bowl - can’t make this stuff up. Whoops here’s the link https://www.pushkin.fm/episode/mcdonalds-broke-my-heart/
Yes, the food pyramid is mostly upside-down - except for the oils and added sugars. It's just one more example of a government intervention that has been hopelessly misguided at best, and downright harmful at worst. Since it was introduced in 1979, rates of nearly all chronic diseases (including diabetes, heart attacks, stroke and cancer) have gone through the roof.
We have a food industry that pretends to nourish us but makes us sick, and a pharma industry that pretends to cure us but makes us even sicker. But look on the bright side: their profits are in excellent health.
Great analogy. This is another great example of reasons not to trust the government. Maybe back then it was reasonable enough to presume they were simply ignorant about what constitutes a healthy diet, but comparing that to todays not-so-subtle push of the vaccines under the guise that they’re interested in our health, it has become glaringly obvious that they would prefer us to be sick, relying on big Pharma drugs to keep our diabetes, excess weight, heart issues, autoimmunity (the list is a mile long) under control.
Besides all those servings of grains and pasta, what stands out is how they lumped fats w sweets.🙄
Several years back, I read a book by Marion Nestle called "Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat."
Around the same time, our pediatrician was scolding me for giving my children whole milk (and I didn't even tell her it was raw) and telling me she is seeing high cholesterol even in little kids. (Kids these days are drinking too much whole milk, I guess, more than their grandparents?)
I wonder if those of us who were inclined to be skeptical of official nutrition recommendations were more likely to "follow the money" when it came to the "health" recommendations made (and not made) during the covid pandemic.
It is true that there is not any one-size-fits-all solution. I have T2DM, so i "should" eat low carb, but my stomach protests. I digest my meals best when they are a mixture of carbs, proteins and veggies/fruits. I love fruit. I'd rather skip a meal than eat meat or eggs without starch. Yuck. Is it a habit or something? Wrong texture? I do not know. Anyway, there is something undoable about low carb for me. When some people praise keto or low carb, I feel somewhat inferior (especially as a diabetic) that I can't do it.
It's still being taught in the UK!
https://nakedemperor.substack.com/
There are definitely still some requirements in place that are inflexible. I had to sign a nutrition opt out form because my kids don't like milk, and unless I opt out, their school is required to provide minimum 12oz per day. I just find it odd that it does not matter that they eat other foods that offer the same nutrients.
It's what you get with one size fits all approach, they want to monitor everything but when that's too complex you just get some dumb rule instead.