new food pyramid

Ann said:

http://www.mypyramid.gov/index.html

I'll see your pyramid and raise you one smarter approach that includes
science, not just lobbyists for the food manufacturers and processors.

<http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/pyramids.html>

Pastorio

Ann said:

http://www.mypyramid.gov/index.html

I perfer the pyramid that was in use before 1992.
Oh wait, there WAS no pyramid before 1992.

Actually, all you really need to is draw a line
one level up and mark it: "Livestock food from here
down. Use sparingly as it causes health problems
in many humans." Do that and you get a pretty
good approximation of a lot of low carb plans.

Ann said:

http://www.mypyramid.gov/index.html

Funny thing. Since I was a kid (20+ years ago) the government has been
urging us to eat a lot of grain, not so much fat, lots of veggies, etc,
not entirely unlike this pyramid or the one before it, or the thing
they used to teach us in the public elementary schools of New York.
Supposedly school lunches have followed these guidelines.

One has to wonder why the government would put out a pyramid that so
many believe to be flawed, particularly in these times, when
information is easier to get than ever before.

I think it's a question of incentives. Our government has a lot of
policies that don't really work in the people's favor, vis-a-vis
putting out a good, honest food pyramid.

First, there are tons of subsidies, tarriffs and other trade barriers
around agriculture, designed to protect the nearly mythical family
farmer and to achieve certain foreign policy goals (like F'ing Cuba,
and to a lesser extent, the rest of Latin and South America). Lots of
grains are subsidized. Someone's gotta eat all of those grains that our
government is providing incentives to corporate farmers to grow, right?
If there's no market for grains, then all the incentive in the world
won't work. Same for many of your more common vegetables and fruits.
The incentives are there for our government to tilt the pyramid, in the
name of the larger objectives.

If obesity really leads to shorter lives (and I think it does), our
social security trust fund doesn't have a solvency problem, since
everyone will pay in, and only the a decreasing number of slim, healthy
people will live to collect. The plight of african-americans vis-a-vis
longevity and social security is well documented (to the point where
even Bush says so, though private accounts won't help anyone). Tracking
obese people through social security is a little trickier, but I
suspect if you could, you'd find a whole lotta fat money going
unclaimed.

Hollywood, an economist, not a conspiracy theorist, though I could
understand your mistake in thinking so.

I'm sure I remember a food pyramid around in the 60s that they taught
in school. It prescribed a certain portion (%) of each food group per
day. I don't remember the percentages.

Ann

Quoted message said:

Doug Freyburger wrote:

Quoted message said:

Oh wait, there WAS no pyramid before 1992.

Actually, all you really need to is draw a line
one level up and mark it: "Livestock food from here
down. Use sparingly as it causes health problems
in many humans." Do that and you get a pretty
good approximation of a lot of low carb plans.

"Ann" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...
:
: I'm sure I remember a food pyramid around in the 60s that they taught
: in school. It prescribed a certain portion (%) of each food group per
: day. I don't remember the percentages.
:
: Ann

On a news program about the new pyramid the other night, the newscaster said
that the old pyramid didn't even last 15 years. So, from that I believe he
meant it was introduced about that long ago.

I don't remember one in the 60's.

Pat in TX

In article <[email hidden]>, "Pat" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

"Ann" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...
:
: I'm sure I remember a food pyramid around in the 60s that they taught
: in school. It prescribed a certain portion (%) of each food group per
: day. I don't remember the percentages.
:
: Ann

On a news program about the new pyramid the other night, the newscaster said
that the old pyramid didn't even last 15 years. So, from that I believe he
meant it was introduced about that long ago.

I don't remember one in the 60's.

In the 60s, we had the 4 basic food groups, but I don't remember the
graphic arrangement.

--
AF
"Non Sequitur U has a really, really lousy debate team."
--artyw raises the bar on rec.sport.baseball

Alice Faber said:

In article <[email hidden]>, "Pat" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

"Ann" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...
:
: I'm sure I remember a food pyramid around in the 60s that they taught
: in school. It prescribed a certain portion (%) of each food group per
: day. I don't remember the percentages.
:
: Ann

On a news program about the new pyramid the other night, the newscaster said
that the old pyramid didn't even last 15 years. So, from that I believe he
meant it was introduced about that long ago.

I don't remember one in the 60's.

In the 60s, we had the 4 basic food groups, but I don't remember the
graphic arrangement.

There wasn't one. As close as they got back then was to do stylized
pictures of grains and red meat and stuff...

Pastorio

"Pat" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

"Ann" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...
:
: I'm sure I remember a food pyramid around in the 60s that they taught
: in school. It prescribed a certain portion (%) of each food group per
: day. I don't remember the percentages.
:
: Ann

I agree with you 100%.... they used it in health class in JHS and then
HS.

--
JK Sinrod
Sinrod Stained Glass Studios
www.sinrodstudios.com
Coney Island Memories
www.sinrodstudios.com/coneymemories

Max Hollywood Harris <[email hidden]> wrote:
|| Ann wrote:
||| http://www.mypyramid.gov/index.html
||
|| Funny thing. Since I was a kid (20+ years ago) the government
|| has been urging us to eat a lot of grain, not so much fat,
|| lots of veggies, etc, not entirely unlike this pyramid or the
|| one before it, or the thing they used to teach us in the
|| public elementary schools of New York. Supposedly school
|| lunches have followed these guidelines.
||
|| One has to wonder why the government would put out a pyramid
|| that so many believe to be flawed, particularly in these
|| times, when information is easier to get than ever before.
||
|| I think it's a question of incentives. Our government has a
|| lot of policies that don't really work in the people's favor,
|| vis-a-vis putting out a good, honest food pyramid.
||
|| First, there are tons of subsidies, tarriffs and other trade
|| barriers around agriculture, designed to protect the nearly
|| mythical family farmer and to achieve certain foreign policy
|| goals (like F'ing Cuba, and to a lesser extent, the rest of
|| Latin and South America). Lots of grains are subsidized.
|| Someone's gotta eat all of those grains that our government
|| is providing incentives to corporate farmers to grow, right?
|| If there's no market for grains, then all the incentive in
|| the world won't work. Same for many of your more common
|| vegetables and fruits. The incentives are there for our
|| government to tilt the pyramid, in the name of the larger
|| objectives.
||
|| If obesity really leads to shorter lives (and I think it
|| does), our social security trust fund doesn't have a solvency
|| problem, since everyone will pay in, and only the a
|| decreasing number of slim, healthy people will live to
|| collect. The plight of african-americans vis-a-vis longevity
|| and social security is well documented (to the point where
|| even Bush says so, though private accounts won't help
|| anyone). Tracking obese people through social security is a
|| little trickier, but I suspect if you could, you'd find a
|| whole lotta fat money going unclaimed.
||
|| Hollywood, an economist, not a conspiracy theorist, though I
|| could understand your mistake in thinking so.

I like your theory Max. :-)

BJ
--
"Few are the problems of mankind which are not amenable to a
suitable application of high explosives."

Max Hollywood Harris said:

Ann said:

http://www.mypyramid.gov/index.html

Funny thing. Since I was a kid (20+ years ago) the government has been
urging us to eat a lot of grain, not so much fat, lots of veggies, etc,
not entirely unlike this pyramid or the one before it, or the thing
they used to teach us in the public elementary schools of New York.
Supposedly school lunches have followed these guidelines.

One has to wonder why the government would put out a pyramid that so
many believe to be flawed, particularly in these times, when
information is easier to get than ever before.

I think it's a question of incentives. Our government has a lot of
policies that don't really work in the people's favor, vis-a-vis
putting out a good, honest food pyramid.

First, there are tons of subsidies, tarriffs and other trade barriers
around agriculture, designed to protect the nearly mythical family
farmer and to achieve certain foreign policy goals (like F'ing Cuba,
and to a lesser extent, the rest of Latin and South America). Lots of
grains are subsidized. Someone's gotta eat all of those grains that our
government is providing incentives to corporate farmers to grow, right?
If there's no market for grains, then all the incentive in the world
won't work. Same for many of your more common vegetables and fruits.
The incentives are there for our government to tilt the pyramid, in the
name of the larger objectives.

If obesity really leads to shorter lives (and I think it does), our
social security trust fund doesn't have a solvency problem, since
everyone will pay in, and only the a decreasing number of slim, healthy
people will live to collect. The plight of african-americans vis-a-vis
longevity and social security is well documented (to the point where
even Bush says so, though private accounts won't help anyone). Tracking
obese people through social security is a little trickier, but I
suspect if you could, you'd find a whole lotta fat money going
unclaimed.

Hollywood, an economist, not a conspiracy theorist, though I could
understand your mistake in thinking so.

It's not just saving the mythical family farm either. Although that is
definitely a politically expedient excuse. Some of the most profitable
corporations around are from the food industry. Archer Daniels Midland,
Coca-Cola, Kelloggs, Kraft, etc.

They take a cheap commodity, grains, that cost them a few dollars per
bushel, and they process and re-package them at tremendous profits.
Right now some wheats are selling for around $5.00 per bushel. That is
60 lbs of wheat. Frosted Shredded Wheat RTE cereal costs probably
around $10 or more for around 19 or 20 ounces. Do the math. That is
about $5.00 worth of raw commodity turned into around $480 worth of
finished product. That, obviously, is very rough math, but you get the
idea. Even if it results in half the saleable product, that is still
large profits.

Coca-Cola's sugar costs are less that 1 cent per can of coke. The sugar
they use is high fructose corn syrup. The rest is water, flavoring and
coloring.

Grains are making them huge profits and they in turn fund a great deal
of lobbying in DC to ensure that grains are positively portrayed in any
gov't policy. The new Pyramid was the result of this lobbying and
influence.

And no, this is not a conspiracy theory, it is how politics and money
works in the real world.

TC

"Max Hollywood Harris" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Ann said:

http://www.mypyramid.gov/index.html

Funny thing. Since I was a kid (20+ years ago) the government has been
urging us to eat a lot of grain, not so much fat, lots of veggies, etc,
not entirely unlike this pyramid or the one before it, or the thing
they used to teach us in the public elementary schools of New York.
Supposedly school lunches have followed these guidelines.

One has to wonder why the government would put out a pyramid that so
many believe to be flawed, particularly in these times, when
information is easier to get than ever before.

I think it's a question of incentives. Our government has a lot of
policies that don't really work in the people's favor, vis-a-vis
putting out a good, honest food pyramid.

First, there are tons of subsidies, tarriffs and other trade barriers
around agriculture, designed to protect the nearly mythical family
farmer and to achieve certain foreign policy goals (like F'ing Cuba,
and to a lesser extent, the rest of Latin and South America). Lots of
grains are subsidized. Someone's gotta eat all of those grains that our
government is providing incentives to corporate farmers to grow, right?
If there's no market for grains, then all the incentive in the world
won't work. Same for many of your more common vegetables and fruits.
The incentives are there for our government to tilt the pyramid, in the
name of the larger objectives.

If obesity really leads to shorter lives (and I think it does), our
social security trust fund doesn't have a solvency problem, since
everyone will pay in, and only the a decreasing number of slim, healthy
people will live to collect. The plight of african-americans vis-a-vis
longevity and social security is well documented (to the point where
even Bush says so, though private accounts won't help anyone). Tracking
obese people through social security is a little trickier, but I
suspect if you could, you'd find a whole lotta fat money going
unclaimed.

Hollywood, an economist, not a conspiracy theorist, though I could
understand your mistake in thinking so.

I've seen plenty of evidence to believe that you've hit the nail on the
head. But for now you'll have to hide before the Government finds out that
we're onto them and try to quiet us down 😉

It's too late. Bush has a long list.....

Kay said:

Quoted message said:

I've seen plenty of evidence to believe that you've hit the nail on the
head. But for now you'll have to hide before the Government finds out that
we're onto them and try to quiet us down 😉

Quoted message said:

It's not just saving the mythical family farm either. Although that is
definitely a politically expedient excuse. Some of the most profitable
corporations around are from the food industry. Archer Daniels Midland,
Coca-Cola, Kelloggs, Kraft, etc.

I do not doubt that lobbyists had a good deal of influence in some
smokey (or perhaps smoke free) back rooms that lead to the current and
previous food pyramids. I am sure that they had a hand, because it's
pretty much common knowledge, and no industry lobbyist has denied it.

The point is that, even lacking lobbying (which we know was there) the
government has a lot of incentive to work for the corporations,
regardless of how much they lobby. I would suggest that this is more
true in a Republican administration, but frankly, Clinton was not
exactly Teddy Roosevelt vis-a-vis Corporate America.

Quoted message said:

They take a cheap commodity, grains, that cost them a few dollars per
bushel, and they process and re-package them at tremendous profits.
Right now some wheats are selling for around $5.00 per bushel. That is
60 lbs of wheat. Frosted Shredded Wheat RTE cereal costs probably
around $10 or more for around 19 or 20 ounces. Do the math. That is
about $5.00 worth of raw commodity turned into around $480 worth of
finished product. That, obviously, is very rough math, but you get the
idea. Even if it results in half the saleable product, that is still
large profits.

Frosted Shredded Wheat, here is Missouri sells for about $3 a large
box. I don't have it in the house, so I cannot suggest how much cereal
is in a large box, but I believe that $10 for a pound and a quarter is
a little high. Even so, the $3 is a big profit margin, if you think of
it in terms of raw materials. But there is a lot more to the cost of
FSW (or any consumer good) than just raw materials. Don't forget the
box, the bag in the box, the distribution to the store, the slotting
fees, the off invoice discounts, the advertising, the market research
into new products, the labor component (people who make the stuff), the
kapital component (the machines they make it with), the SGA (think the
salaries of people who do everything other than make it), etc. I used
to do cost accounting for a living, before my MBA, and you'd be amazed
at the amount of things that get charged to a product. That said, I am
sure that FSW is a money maker, and we know that Coke in a Can or
Bottle is as big a margin item as you can get (though Coke probably
spends half a billion in advertising just in the US, which amortizes
out to at least a few pennies a bottle).

Quoted message said:

Coca-Cola's sugar costs are less that 1 cent per can of coke. The sugar
they use is high fructose corn syrup. The rest is water, flavoring and
coloring.

Funny thing here is that their sugar costs could go down if our
government revised it's trade policy regarding sugar. If Coke could pay
the world price, they might pay less than one cent per six pack. Not
that we'd see the difference, because the marketing alone costs more
than anything in the can, and probably the can itself.

Quoted message said:

Grains are making them huge profits and they in turn fund a great deal
of lobbying in DC to ensure that grains are positively portrayed in any
gov't policy. The new Pyramid was the result of this lobbying and
influence.

Agreed, though I don't know that it would necessarily have been any
different without the lobbying, because, the government's egotistically
rational incentives are aligned with the food companies, in a lot of
ways. That said, I don't want my government acting as an economically
rational egotist. We kind of have that with the current administration
(to a greater degree than previous administrations), but I'm not
exactly thrilled about it anyway. (If you want to know why, think
public goods, like schools or highways or fire departments... things
that aren't worth the investment to a single actor, but benefit society
as a whole).

Quoted message said:

And no, this is not a conspiracy theory, it is how politics and money
works in the real world.

Sad how that is.

Hollywood, Cost Accountant

Max Hollywood Harris said:

Ann said:

http://www.mypyramid.gov/index.html

Funny thing. Since I was a kid (20+ years ago) the government has been
urging us to eat a lot of grain, not so much fat, lots of veggies, etc,
not entirely unlike this pyramid or the one before it, or the thing
they used to teach us in the public elementary schools of New York.
Supposedly school lunches have followed these guidelines.

One has to wonder why the government would put out a pyramid that so
many believe to be flawed, particularly in these times, when
information is easier to get than ever before.

"Never attibute to malice what can be adaquately explained
with incompetence."

Consider - The transfats in margarine are toxic, yet for
many years margarine was pushed as healthier than butter.
Does anyone think that the majority of the folks involved
in margarine were cynical business folks who knew they
were bringing harm to people? It took 20 years for the
evidence to build against transfats. No, I think the
folks originally involved in margarine saw the studies
implicating saturated fats and they found a substitute.

Why push grains? Because the cultivation of grain
enabled civilization in the first place. Because grain
stores well and the sorts of fresh foods low carbers
perfer don't. Because storage and transport were problems
going back in time forever and attitudes run behind the
current technology.

People have been pushing grains as healthy for millenia.
It's obvious. Oh well, turns out that obvious does not
equal true. There are a LOT of beliefs that are based
on the obvious that are false. Grains are healthy.
Increased school budgets mean better test scores. All
you need to lose is to eat moderately. The Earth is
flat. You name it, the list goes on forever.

The old "four food groups", the new "food pyramid" and
the newer revised pyramid where built because they were
obvious, because they had supporting studies, because
the people involved really did want to help, and because
the evidence to the contrary took time to come out.

Sure, it seems obvious to low carbers now that fresh
meat and veggies are the way to go, that a low-carb
medium-protein high-fat eating style works better for
most people than a medium-carb medium-protein
medium-fat eating style. But the eating of grains is
very deeply ingrained in the traditions of every
civilized culture. If it's all you've ever known as far
back as being ancient history during the times of
ancient history, it is so common it is neither noticed
nor doubted.

Chicken and egg - Which came first, eating grain or the
financial incentives in the current system? The incentives
are there because of how the industry evolved. The food
pyramid doesn't need to be an evil conspiracy. It only
needs to be a naturally occuring historical trend.

Also note that many low carb programs don't permanently
write off grains. Atkins puts *whole* grains in his
carb ladder and only blames the refined grains that have
only been available for under two centuries. Even the
good doctor didn't see grains as bad. He saw a technology
that was taken to an extreme as bad.

I've suggested taking the 1992 pyramid and simply marking
the grain level as livestock food. That's a huge paradyme
shift that few are willing to undergo.

I was in grade school in late 60's and early 70's and I remember be taught a
food pyramid in health.
It told what a serving was and how many servings we should have of each group
..
lori

Ann said:

I'm sure I remember a food pyramid around in the 60s that they taught
in school. It prescribed a certain portion (%) of each food group per
day. I don't remember the percentages.

Ann

Quoted message said:

Doug Freyburger wrote:

Quoted message said:

Oh wait, there WAS no pyramid before 1992.

[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]

Quoted message said:

in many humans." Do that and you get a pretty
good approximation of a lot of low carb plans.

Doug Freyburger wrote:

<Major Snip above and below selection>

Quoted message said:

Why push grains? Because the cultivation of grain
enabled civilization in the first place. Because grain
stores well and the sorts of fresh foods low carbers
perfer don't. Because storage and transport were problems
going back in time forever and attitudes run behind the
current technology.

In my ideal, ethical world, my tax dollars (few though they may be) go
to fund thought leaders (ie the people who make the pyramid) who are
just that, leaders. We KNOW that there were intense lobbying efforts to
ensure markets for certain products and we CAN SEE that the incentives
are wrong for the government to say, eat less wheat, or don't eat wheat
and sugar with fat. For the USDA gurus to come out with something that
basically supports the status quo is not what I would call
"leadership". It's what I would call herd mentality at best, and
abdication of responsibility.

Sadly, we do not live in Max Harris's Ideal Ethical World (TM). But, I
don't think asking the government to look after the greater good with
the best knowledge available is too much to ask. Maybe I'm just an
idealist. But "It's that way because it's always been that way"
shouldn't cut mustard with anyone at any time. That attitude would have
kept us in the trees, would have kept white people in Europe, would
have kept society agrarian, would have kept the US a colony of England,
and the list goes on.

-Hollywood

And you guys who believe in this *Great Grain conspiracy* don't think
the government has an interest in protecting the cattle industry? Why
do you think our mad cow testing is so inadequate as compared to Japan
and Canada????

Do you really think the government is telling all in regards to the
beef you eat? You think the government isn't pushing beef?

You can feed a nation with grain. Try doing that with cattle.

Quoted message said:

Max Hollywood Harris wrote:

Quoted message said:

In my ideal, ethical world, my tax dollars (few though they may be) go
to fund thought leaders (ie the people who make the pyramid) who are
just that, leaders. We KNOW that there were intense lobbying efforts to
ensure markets for certain products and we CAN SEE that the incentives
are wrong for the government to say, eat less wheat, or don't eat wheat
and sugar with fat. For the USDA gurus to come out with something that
basically supports the status quo is not what I would call
"leadership". It's what I would call herd mentality at best, and
abdication of responsibility.

Sadly, we do not live in Max Harris's Ideal Ethical World (TM). But, I
don't think asking the government to look after the greater good with
the best knowledge available is too much to ask. Maybe I'm just an
idealist. But "It's that way because it's always been that way"
shouldn't cut mustard with anyone at any time. That attitude would have
kept us in the trees, would have kept white people in Europe, would
have kept society agrarian, would have kept the US a colony of England,
and the list goes on.

-Hollywood

Ann said:

And you guys who believe in this *Great Grain conspiracy*

Good job not paying attention.

Quoted message said:

You can feed a nation with grain. Try doing that with cattle.

Thank you Dr Thomas Malthus. Wrong for well over three
centuries running and still spouting the same story line.

Notice how you ignore what low carbing actually is to
make your statements?

Ann said:

And you guys who believe in this *Great Grain conspiracy* don't think
the government has an interest in protecting the cattle industry? Why
do you think our mad cow testing is so inadequate as compared to Japan
and Canada????

The beef industry is protected, largely because there is a natural
demand for the product, and there is only so much import/export of it.
We only really import from Canada in quantity. We do import some
specialty product from Japan (think Wagyu, Kobe, etc), though we are
starting to grown that specialty product here as well.

Wheat travels a lot better than slaughtered cow pieces do, and
therefore is subject to a lot of import/export issues. Additionally, we
know that industry lobbyists from both the beef industry and the wheat
concerns were involved with your new pyramid (which seems a lot like
the old pyramid, only rotated to keep the grain people from feeling
inferior by being at the bottom).

Quoted message said:

Do you really think the government is telling all in regards to the
beef you eat? You think the government isn't pushing beef?

Hrm, 6.5 ounces of proteins a day vs. 9 ounces of grains. You tell me
what the government is pushing me. (The above numbers come from
mypyramid.gov, entering my age (32) and a moderate amount of physical
activity) If you think beef got the short end of that equation, you'd
be right. Of course, my current consumption has grains a lot lower and
proteins at quite a bit more. I'm feeling great, loving living, and
losing weight (19.5 lbs since 7/20/05, when I started to correct my
diet).

Quoted message said:

You can feed a nation with grain. Try doing that with cattle.

Poor economics, with that lousy vegetarian bad science propaganda
(biomass requirements). This country (the United States) was built on
and by meat eaters. Not exclusive meat eaters, but they ate meat. They
drove cattle. The hunted bison. Show me a naturally occuring,
vegetarian society filled with healthy people. Suggest India, and we
can discuss the merits of a society fed on grain vs. the poverty that
has entailed.

Bad economics, which is not a dismal science.

Hollywood.