I don’t understand the new food pyramid. Then again, I didn’t understand the old food pyramid, either.
The pyramids were created by the U.S. Department of Agriculture the Department of Health and Human Service as a way of directing Americans toward healthful eating.
The problem I have with them isn’t with the food recommended in either pyramid, which I do understand. The problem is with the visualization.
First of all, the pyramids aren’t pyramids, they are triangles. I don’t know anyone who looks at them and says, “That shape is 3-dimensional.”
But more to the point, I do not understand their orientation.
The old pyramid, in use from 1995-2005, was an isosceles triangle with one of the sides aligned along the bottom of the page. The new pyramid, introduced in January, has one side aligned along the top. In other words, the old version looked like it was sitting on the ground and the new one looks like it is balancing on a point.
In both cases, the interior of the triangles are filled with foods we are recommended to eat in proportion to their position in the triangle.
This is where I get confused, and maybe it’s just me. Actually, the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that it is, indeed, just me.
Are we supposed to eat more of the foods at the bottom of the triangle, in proportion to the space allotted there? Or are we supposed to look at the foods at the top of the triangle as being the most important, because they are at the top?
I honestly don’t know. Then again, when I am driving and I see the words
CURVE
SLOW
on the street, I read it as “Curve slow,” and by the time I realize what it is actually saying I have almost driven off the road.
The old triangle had cereals, grains, bread and pasta at the bottom. The level above it was devoted to vegetables on one side and fruit on the other. The next level up was given over to dairy products on one side and proteins such as meat, poultry, fish, beans and eggs on the other.
On the very top was fats, oils and sweets. Now that I’ve typed that, I guess those were the food types that we were generally supposed to avoid.
The new food triangle is harder to figure out.
At the bottom, which is the point on which the rest of the triangle stands, are whole grains, which is depicted by a picture of bread, barley and a bowl of something I am going to guess is rice.
Above that, I have no idea what is going on.
The left side of the triangle is labeled “Protein, Dairy & Healthy Fats.” At the top of that side are depictions of steak, cheese and chicken, with salmon, ground beef, whole milk and olive oil just below them.
At the bottom of this portion of the triangle are walnuts, butter, peanuts and a bowl of something I’m not even going to take a guess at.
Are they trying to say that steak, cheese, olive oil and whole milk are better for you than nuts, butter and peanuts? Are they trying to say that they are worse?
High triglyceride levels can lead to problems such as heart attacks and strokes, according to the Cleveland Clinic, and your levels can rise if you eat such foods as red meat, cheese and whole milk. They are at the top of the inverted triangle, so I suppose those are the foods to avoid, right?
But then we see butter toward the bottom of the triangle, and butter also increases triglyceride levels. Meanwhile, olive oil is toward the top, and olive oil is known to be better for your triglyceride levels than butter.
On the right side of the inverted triangle are fruits and vegetables, with broccoli, carrots and frozen peas at the top and bananas and grapes at the bottom. So I guess they’re saying to eat more vegetables than fruit, unless it’s more fruit than vegetables. But then there is a pear toward the top and a potato toward the bottom.
I’m so confused. I’m just going to go back to eating whatever I want.
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Food pyramid’s confusing design leaves one writer baffled
Reporting by Daniel Neman, St. Louis Post-Dispatch / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
