Why the Food Pyramid was Bullshit
By Dario Toval
Pull-quotes:
“One too many times, the wheat and corn industry has tried to peddle their products that are essentially desserts, such as cereal and crackers, as healthy as whole grain bread and brown rice.”
“As an adult, I never expected for its inception [The food pyramid] to be, to be frank, shrouded in conspiracy and subject to so much food industry meddling. You would think that our government would have their citizen’s best interest in mind, but at least with the American food industry, this isn’t the case.”
“If you actually took the outdated food pyramid at face value, you would most likely find yourself eating well above your maintenance calories. And eventually, falling victim to many chronic illnesses caused by metabolic syndrome. As did millions of Americans back in the mid 2000’s, and still, today.”
Author Intro: I wrote “Why the Food Pyramid is Bullshit” because I wanted to educate others on the history of the food pyramid and explain how it actually wasn’t a good metric for determining whether you have a healthy diet. While the food pyramid has admittedly improved over time, this doesn’t take away from the multiple decades that the United States Department of Agriculture peddled the food pyramid as the defacto guide to nutrition when in reality, the food pyramid was a major contributor to America’s ongoing diabetes and obesity epidemics. If you were to follow the food pyramid as it stood from 1992 to 2005, you would have been eating well above your maintenance calories. And you would have been led to believe that crackers and other sweets were as necessary in your diet as bread and rice. I wanted and still want to help people take their nutrition into their own hands, and help people realize that all our bodies are different and there are no one-size-fits-all solutions when it comes to your diet.
Faculty nominator intro: From Natalie Van Breukelen: Dario’s presentation “Why the food pyramid was bullshit” was submitted as the final research project in BIO107: Nutrition in Fall 2022. Dario’s short informative video highlighted his understanding of the course content and showcased how the content applied to real life scenarios. In his stylistically pleasing and well narrated video, Dario takes the viewer through the troubled history of the food pyramid, relating the information to nutritional science. Dario’s presentation exemplified the outcomes for the project and the course.
View: https://youtu.be/TC9-3dvh7WU
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