From the Indiana Statesman (online edition)
http://www.indianastatesman.com/vne...6/401592dd5d7a8


Food Pyramid ancient, needs scientific replacement

To the Point
By Erin Willman
January 26, 2004


In the face of an ever-increasing obesity epidemic, the ideal action for the American government would be to base its set of nutritional guidelines on sound scientific research and to update those guidelines when new developments in nutrition arise. In reality, quite the contrary is true.

The government's nutritional information, otherwise known as the Food Pyramid, was created by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1992. Based on misinformation, it has remained relatively unchanged since its creation, despite many long-term studies that have contradicted the nutritional advice it offers.

One such study is the Harvard Nurses' Health Study, led by Dr. Walter Willett. Begun in 1980, the goal of this ongoing study is to assess the long-term affects of diet on health by examining 121,000 women in addition to a comparable group of men added later. Based on the initial conclusions of this long-term look at health and diet correlations, Willett and his colleagues at Harvard Med have found several reasons the USDA Food Pyramid needs revision.

First, the base of the USDA Pyramid is made of complex carbohydrates, implying that all complex carbs are good. In fact, inside your body, refined complex carbs such as white bread, white rice, pasta and potatoes cause the same dramatic increases in blood sugar and insulin in the same amount of time as pure sugar. These blood sugar increases are quickly followed by hunger-signaling drops despite the fact that your body just processed food. This blood sugar rollercoaster can result in insulin resistance, type-2 diabetes, and heart disease, the effects of which are more striking in overweight people. Yet many carbohydrates do not have this impact on blood sugar, including whole grains, fruits and vegetables (except potatoes). These foods take longer to digest and have a slow and steady effect on blood sugar. However, no distinction is made between good complex carbohydrates and bad complex carbohydrates on the USDA Food Pyramid.

Furthermore, the Food Pyramid fails to identify healthy sources of protein. The USDA guide includes red meat, fish, poultry, eggs, nuts and beans in the protein category, and it is true that all of these foods are great sources of protein. However, the lack of saturated fat in fish and poultry make them better choices than red meat and the extra vitamins and healthy unsaturated fats found in nuts and beans make them excellent choices as well. All of the foods in the protein category of the USDA Pyramid contain protein, but the USDA Pyramid fails to recognize that some protein-rich foods are healthier than others.

In addition, the USDA Food Pyramid lumps all fats together and labels them unhealthy. In reality, there is a vast difference between saturated, trans and unsaturated fats, as well as the impact they have on your health. Both saturated fats and trans fats raise cholesterol levels and increase risk for heart disease. However, unsaturated fats lower bad cholesterol levels while raising good cholesterol levels, actually improving heart health. This has been shown in many studies, including Ancel Keys' Seven Countries Study in the 1950s, which examined the diets and disease of each country in the study. Keys' results confirmed that countries with higher amounts of saturated fat in the diet had higher rates of heart disease while countries with little saturated fat had lower rates of heart disease, but heart disease had no link to total fat or unsaturated fat consumption. Even though this study and others like it have demonstrated that not all fats are bad, the USDA Food Pyramid ignores the scientific support for the idea that saturated fat should be replaced by unsaturated fat in the diet.

Despite all this evidence, the USDA Food Pyramid has not been revised. Unfortunately, this fact has played an integral role in the increase of obesity in America. Overweight Americans cut out all fats and replace them with refined carbohydrates as the Food Pyramid suggests - an action which all too often increases weight problems.

By ignoring the vast body of scientific research regarding proper nutrition, the Food Pyramid is only bringing more health problems upon the American public. Instead of offering sound advice on how to make healthier choices, the Food Pyramid offers cute graphics and scientifically unfounded counsel. It's not difficult to see why the USDA hasn't made major reforms in the types and amounts of food included in the Food Pyramid; by controlling nutrition information, the Department of Agriculture can persuade the public to consume large quantities of their products.

In a time when consistent nutrition information is scarce, the USDA Food Pyramid is only adding to the confusion. The American government should provide citizens with sound and reliable advice concerning nutrition by basing recommendations on the most consistent and scientifically supported information instead of maintaining outdated and incorrect claims.

This one started quite good, actually, until it got to the protein part, and especially the fat part...
ANYBODY who uses these abominations of non-science known as Ancel Keys' studies tu support anything loses all credibility in my mind...

As you might or might not know, Ancel Keys was selective about which countries he wanted to include in his study: The ones that matched his conclusions were in and the ones that didn't were out.

Good science indeed

Oh and welcome Woodpecker. Thanks for posting. We love tearing apart articles

Thanks Angeline, my fellow Montrealer, to explain my rant!

Thanks Angeline, Montreal always has been my favourite city.

I think she got this part right - quote: "In a time when consistent nutrition information is scarce,..."

Looking back in Willett's book "Eat, Drink and Be Healthy," he states in bold type: " Cutting back on all types of fat and eating extra carbohydrates will do little to protect against heart disease and will ultimately harm some people." Then he says "Instead, replacing saturated fats with unsaturated fats is a safe, proven and delicious way to cut the rates of heart disease." By unsaturated fats he seems to primarily mean mono-saturated (olive oil) and fish oils, however, he doesn't exclude corn or soyabean oil. Willet also says "High carbohydrate diets are especially bad for people who are (already) overweight," because of increased risk of heart attack.

He notes that saturated fat is correlated with high cholesterol, but doesn't say much else about it. Voyajer covered that risk pretty well in her excellent reference article. He seems to cite the Lyons (Mediterranean") Diet Heart Study as proof that unsaturated fats provide greater protection from heart disease and cancer than the diet proposed by the American Heart Association. However, I am sure Mary Enig ("Know Your fats") and the Weston Price Foundation would take some exception to any recommendation for vegetable oils.

I'd like to see more clarity here. Even the so-called Mediterranean diet can vary significantly. Does it include duck fat or not? Apparently not in Willett's version - but this overlooks both the so-called French and Spanish "pardoxes" i.e., heart disease declines with increased saturated fat consumption. The Greeks and the Japanese live the longest and smoke the most cigarettes. Maybe that's the answer.

The important thing to start with is the carbs- she nailed that section.

A shame she never stopped to think, "hmm, salmon only come upriver once a year. How did humans survive inland on bad proteins and bad fats? "

Then the headline and story would be 'Food Pyramid *not* ancient, needs scientific replacement'.

Woodpecker, my girlfriend's family is from southwest France (Gascony), where they use plenty of duck and goose and pig fat with everything they eat (andouillette, foie gras, tripe, etc), and have very low rates of heart disease (5 times less than in North Am if memory serves).
Anyways, I've visited many Mediterannean countries, and you are absolutely right, their eating habits vary widely.
For example, in the South of Italy, they use olive oil aplenty, with pork fat (especially for homemade sausage and homemade pâtés, and sometimes to fry pasta), cheese, and very little butter. In Greece (again, depends on the specific region, but let's take Crete for example), they use butter, lots of cheese, lots of olives and olive oil, and fish. In Southeastern France, they use butter, sheep, pig, fish, and duck fat aplenty, but little olive oil.
And those are just the places where I've been, because there are many others. Even many Arab countries could be included in the Mediterannean diet, as could be Spain, and Corsica.
But the point is, no matter what region, these people consume plenty of fat, and almost always plenty of animal fat.
The diets that Keys saw in the 50s in Italy weren't the true diets of the countries he visited, they were the diets of the end of the war rationning.
If you don't believe me, go see for yourself! And those are magnificient regions, so you'll have fun too

As of either 2002/2003, Greece held the WORLD RECORD for the highest Per Capita Cheese Consumption. Interestingly enough Argentina [a country in South America,] NOT THE US as alot of folks would have you believe held the WORLD RECORDS for highest consumption of Beef and Total Food (Calories.) If I remember correctly, Britain held some kind of record relating to Junk Food, Candy, or something of that nature. I'd have to look it up.

Thanks Tbone,

It is interesting to see what the Mediterranean diet can mean. It sounds like high saturated fats is a common thread. To his credit, Willett is warning about carbohydrates, at least some of them. That's a powerful boost to the low carb cause. He also seems to suggest that fats, generally, are often a better bet than carbohydrates. The diet in Crete when it was studied by Ancel Keys apparently had low levels of saturated fat. This, and the Lyons Heart Study, probably explains much of the reason why Willett is concerned about saturated fat. Relative to North America, Crete had high consumption of fish, fruit/vegetables and legumes. It also had high consumption of breads. Crete had one of the longest life spans at the time of the study. I think it still does. So there is something wrong. Your explanation about the scarcity of food after the war makes sense. The diet captured at that time could have just been a blip on the radar. The Lyons Heart Study Diet was low in saturated fats and trans fats -however, as Mary Enig points out, nobody was really separating out trans fats in the US diet when they made comparisons years ago. That could have been our problem. Wine consumption, that Willett heartily endorses, could be another factor in the health of the Mediterranean region - bypassing all fat consumption, if it is taking platelets out of the blood. There are a lot of factors to consider and it doesn't appear this work has really been done yet, so the result is informed guessing. Willett points out that the Chinese traditionally had a high consumption of carbohydrates and maintained good health. He credits this to an active life-style. However, other evidence shows the Chinese diet varies considerably from place to place and pig fat was a major food in some regions. The local health food stores here are now promoting coconut oil as a health food, and of course, Mercola is promoting it in a major way on his website. You'd think that some of the mainstream nutritionists would stop for a moment and say "What's going on here?" The public deserves a straight story on saturated fats before a new food pyramid experiment is started. Willett should also clarify what he means by healthy unsaturated fats. Mary Enig's description of the typically refined vegetable oil leaves much to be desired. It is hard to believe it could be healthy for us.