Food Pyramid and Its Evolution

The Traditional Food Pyramid Model

This is the original food pyramid. The bottom of the pyramid is the carbohydrate group, recommending 6-11 servings per day—an aspect heavily attacked by modern nutritionists. On the next level up, we have the vegetable group on the left (3-5 servings per day) and the fruit group on the right (2-4 servings per day). The penultimate level consists of the dairy group on the left (2-3 servings per day) and the protein group on the right (2-3 servings per day). All the way up top is the fat group, which you're supposed to avoid whenever possible. 

Below is a generalisation of a typical every day meal.

• Breakfast: A bowl of cereal with milk, an apple or banana, and two pieces of toast with butter (1 serving of dairy, 1 serving of fruit, 2 servings of carbs, and little fat).P
• Lunch: A lean turkey sandwich with cheese, some cut carrots and celery, a bag of mixed nuts, and a plum (2 servings of protein, 1 serving of dairy, 1 serving of carbs, 1 serving of vegetables, and 1 serving of fruit).P
• Dinner: Grilled chicken, peas and carrots, salad, and a slice of zucchini bread (1 serving of protein, 2 servings of vegetables, and 1 serving of carbs).P

The net total that gets you:P

• Carbs: 4 servingsP
• Fruits: 2 servingsP
• Vegetables: 3 servingsP
• Dairy: 2 servingsP
• Protein: 3 servingsP

The goal of the original food pyramid was to suggest a healthy diet that would be easy for anyone to follow. However, to put the food pyramid into practical test, problems start to occur. 

The Problems:
With this amount of food in a single day, you'd have no trouble getting six servings-worth of carbohydrates. Nonetheless, it only works out to four servings, which is two under the minimum. (More on this later.) 

On the other side of the equation, this set of meals shows the correct number of servings of protein, but doesn't account for the additional protein you get through dairy (for example). 

It doesn't account for all sorts of things, like the high carbohydrate content found in beans or all the dairy that sneaks its way into so many foods and sauces, homemade or manufactured. 

It also doesn't account for many important variables, such as your sex, your height and healthy weight, your daily activity, how different bodies have easier or harder times processing certain foods, and more. 

The original food pyramid was a nice thought, and it's not way off, but it's definitely not a sufficient tool for anybody's diet.

The New Food Pyramid Model

1. Red meat and butter: USE SPARINGLY
2. White rice, white bread, potatoes, pasta and sweets: USE SPARINGLY
3. Dairy or calcium supplement: 1 TO 2 SERVINGS
4. Fish, poultry and eggs: 0 TO 2 SERVINGS
5. Nuts and legumes: 1 TO 3 SERVINGS
6. Vegetables: IN ABUNDANCE
7. Fruit: 2 TO 3 SERVINGS
8. Whole-grain foods: AT MOST MEALS
9. Plant oils (olive, canola, soy, corn, sunflower, peanut and other vegetable oils): AT MOST MEALS

What's important in this revision is that it distinguishes between types of foods that were previously in the same groupings, but could have very different effects on a person's diet. For example, white grains are now separated from whole grains, as current findings point to whole grains as the healthier option.

The biggest fault of any food pyramid, like any set of diet and health guidelines, is that everybody is different, and encounters different eating experiences throughout their day. There are enough similarities to make some general recommendations, but acting on any of those recommendations without factoring in your own specific needs is not the best course of action. Here's how to take the information you find in a food pyramid (preferably the rebuilt pyramid previously mentioned) and actually use it for better eating.

1. Focus on Simple Food

You don't have to take up a macrobiotic diet to do real tracking of your intake, but when you're considering what you eat, you should still consider its parts, rather than the whole.P

Food pyramids break up macronutrients into more specific categories. Problem is, you don't necessarily eat a whole zucchini as part of your meal. Take a turkey sandwich, for example. Eating one of those could end up giving you a serving of protein (the turkey), a serving of dairy (a piece of cheese), and a serving (or more) of carbohydrates (the bread), but it also varies if you're swapping contents and toppings in and out.P

If you're cooking, try to stay on top of everything that goes into that particular dish. It'll help you know the impact on your body once you eat it, but it'll also help you understand what can be added or subtracted to make the meal healthier. While you don't necessarily want to give up cooking, uncooked and unprocessed whole foods can make a great contribution to a healthier diet.

2. Understand the Pros and Cons of Each Food

When choosing foods you want to eat, you're never going to know the full list of nutrients it provides. You can, however, get to know the main pros and cons of certain foods. For example, plums are high in fiber, and black beans are high in protein and carbohydrates. A burrito is a good real-world example of why this information is important.P

Let's say you're building a burrito and you're deciding what to put inside. You start with a tortilla, add beans, and then add rice (among other potential ingredients). Every one of those items provides a significant number of carbohydrates. Knowing which foods are good sources of which nutrients can help you make better decisions when choosing your servings. The food pyramid can be a good guide for choosing those servings, but when you start to get specific you need to know when a food counts as a serving outside of its main category as well.

3. Body Needs

Your daily calorie intake depends on more factors than being human, but that's basically all the food pyramids assume. When you're figuring out how much you need to eat each day to maintain a balanced diet, you should factor in your age, sex, height, weight, level of exercise, and whether or not fat loss is a goal.

Safe diets aren't always as simple as just reducing calories, and you should consult a doctor before making any extreme decisions about your diet, but there are a lot of ways to find out how to determine your daily calorie intake using those factors. www.FreeDieting.com provides a handy calorie calculator that makes suggestions on how many calories you should consume per day. It's good to have your particular needs in mind when you figure out how the serving suggestions on the food pyramid apply to you.

4. Body Problems

In theory we digest and process food in the same ways, but a lot of us have allergies and dietary restrictions. Whether your restrictions are voluntary or not, you probably have to substitute a normal item you find on the food group pyramid for something else. It's important to remember that substitutes can have a major difference in nutritional value and to know what those differences are.P

Let's take lactose intolerance and milk as an example. If you're replacing milk, your most obvious choices are soy milk and rice milk. Rice milk has significantly higher levels of carbohydrates than regular milk and soy milk often has a lot of sugar added (not always the case, but it's always worth checking first). If you don't eat meat and are looking at substitutes, many of them have a very high sodium content that you wouldn't find in actual meat. This isn't necessarily worse, just different. It's important to be aware of the differences in substitutions and not assume you're getting the exact same nutrients you'll find in the item it was designed to replace.