Food Pyramid Fallacy

Food Pyramid Fallacy      

 “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” - Hippocrates.   

Food, real food, is essential for life; without it we die.  Real food brings health and vitality to the body and mind by delivering essential nutrients to every cell and organ.   It is the fuel that makes our body machine run properly, just like our car needs gasoline.  If we pour a bottle of soda pop into the gas tank of our car, we can’t expect the car to run right because it is not the correct fuel for the car.  This is the same thing with our body.  It requires the correct fuel in order to run properly.  It has no idea what to do with fake fuel or excessive non-essential calories, so it ends up storing it as abnormal fat deposits on the body.  While this is happening, there is a state of inflammation occurring within us at the cellular level that is often not detected until discomfort and disease has set in.   These diseases are generally recognized as obesity, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, inflammatory bowel disease etc...

Revised Food Pyramid

The two macronutrients that are essential for fueling a human body are healthy fat and protein.  A nutrient is essential only if we must consume it in order for our body to use it for fuel, thereby obtaining vital energy, water, amino acids, vitamins and minerals from it.  Carbohydrate, particularly of the grain and starch variety, is often mistaken as an essential macronutrient but, because the body is able to get the glucose that certain cells needs via gluconeogenesis of proteins without consuming excess carbohydrate rich foods, some doctors/scientists now believe it is not one of the essentials, therefore reduction of them is now viewed by many as a healthy way to address the above mentioned health concerns.     (1)

For decades governments around the world have been advising their citizens how to feed their families.  The traditional food pyramid, introduced in Sweden in 1974 and then later adopted in the US, is notoriously bottom heavy with carbohydrate rich grain and starch foods, with the supposition that eating a low fat/ high carb diet would improve people’s weights and health.  This has since been tested and found to be untrue.  (2)  

Since the introduction of the traditional food pyramid and the government’s low fat/ high carb recommendations, the number of people with these diseases has risen in both Sweden and the USA  leading, ironically, to the Swedish government doing  studies and now rejecting the former low fat/ high carb advice and advocating a low carb/ high fat nutrition plan instead.  (3)

Many people (myself included) who have adopted a Low Carb/ High(Healthy) Fat/ Moderate Protein lifestyle have been able to lose unwanted fat and even change their overall state of health and well-being; improving, or even reversing, the above mentioned health concerns.  

1.  http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/75/5/951.2.long

2. Low fat diet study:  In a massive study that included tens of thousands of people, women who follow such a diet for 7.5 years end up weighing only 0.4kg (1 lb) less than women eating the standard western diet. There is also no effect on heart disease 

3.  http://healthimpactnews.com/2013/sweden-becomes-first-western-nation-to-reject-low-fat-diet-dogma-in-favor-of-low-carb-high-fat-nutrition/