New Food Pyramid - and food for thought...

icklemoley

Cathlete
After reading many studies on nutrition, etc…I’ve come to the conclusion. Perhaps its not meat. Perhaps its not saturated fat. Perhaps it’s not Grains. Perhaps it’s not butter. Perhaps it’s not fat. Perhaps none of these things are what make people fat, ill and die. Perhaps it’s the processed food that “MAN” makes? Study’s said that saturated is bad, yet a closer look reveals that when the clogged up artery is cut and the contents inspected it turns out that only 26% of that fat is saturated and the rest is, yep, you used it, polyunsaturated. The healthy fat that were meant to eat. Now to my point. It seems that when we include processed food into our diet that’s when problems happen. I’m not talking brown rice here, or grains, I’m talking bread, things that come in boxes, made by man, not God. When people eat a diet that is based on nature they usually stay healthy, yet when exposed to Man’s creations they get ill. Remember the Okinawa study? They live a long, long time, eat mostly grains, etc…Well it turns out that’s true, but only just. They actually eat a lot of grain, vegetables but also fat, high fat sea food and pork. Now they eat no processed food. None. They are healthy. Now the next country on the list to live the longest is … The Swiss! Yep, and they eat a diet high high in fat, but again, very little processed food. Now the American and British food pyramid says that we should eat 7-11 servings of grain and processed cabs a day! How mad is that? Here’s what I think the new food pyramid should look like, starting with the most import nutrients:

WATER
VEGETABLES
FRUITS
NUTS/SEEDS
MEAT/FAT
DAIRY
SUGAR

Just my humble opinion…but thought you might be interested.
 
Hi Wayne!

Don't you just love to research and find new information. Comparing the eating habits of different cultures fascinates me.

I agree with where you're going with this. Here in the US people basically live on fast food. We were at Disneyland over the weekend and it is astonishing to watch people and notice how over weight and physically out of shape the majority of the crowd is. Not that I'm the picture of health and vitality, mind you, but with the knowledge I have I know what I need to do to prevent future health issues.

Here is another link to another healthy food pyramid:

http://www.oldwayspt.org/pyramids/med/p_med.html

(In case you didn't run into it already ;-) )

Take care,
 
Wayne what you said made all sorts of sence!
Vickie, what an intersting website, I had no idea what the other cultures food pyramids looked like. I honestly figured that everyones was the same. That maybe it's just that other cultures eat differently, but have the same food pyramid.
Ok, so I have heard that eating the foods on the outside of the store, ie, fruit, veggies, meats, dairy, are good and that once you start buying the stuff down the isles that then it gets bad. Maybe i need to start listening to my knowledge? Ha, ha!
Thank you Wayne and Vickie!

Kathy
 
This topic is very timely for me since I am in Phase I of the South Beach Diet.

I am of Asian descent and LOVE, LOVE noodles and white rice. I also love pancakes, bread, all the "bad" carbs.

I was tired of working out like a maniac with little fat loss, so I finally decided to do this for 2 weeks. I figured 2 weeks wouldn't kill me.

Anyway, my point is (and I do have one) that I had no idea just how much processed carbs/foods I was eating before going on this diet. In fact, I had to go shopping for food because all the veggies I had were rotten and almost everything else was processed carbs!

In South Korea women go grocery shopping several times a week for fresh produce, fish, etc. Buying packaged foods is frowned upon by the older generation. The younger generation eat more refined/processed carbs, especially with the influx of Western restaurants. The result is obesity for young children for the first time ever.

So, yes, I totally agree with you about processed foods.

But, the reason why most Americans can't or won't get away from it is: It's cheap(er), it's convenient.
 
>>So, yes, I totally agree with you about processed foods.
>
>But, the reason why most Americans can't or won't get away
>from it is: It's cheap(er), it's convenient.

Good point. I think you will also find that a lot of people on welfare tend to eat poorly, because of what you pointed out.
 
I'd glad like my thoughts. The more and more i read the more i'm certain that fat, meat, and all the stuff that is torted as bad, really isn't. Its actually man made food that causes harm. Thanks for the link!

Wayne.
 
There are a great many people, Wayne, who believe the food pyramid is outdated and/or just plain wrong. Unfortunately, because the government has a hand in it, the process to modify it is slow, or doesn't happen at all. Processed foods are a big business in this country. And anyplace you have big business, you have money and power. Ignore the pyramid, and eat the way you feel is best for your body! It's a guideline and nothing more. Doesn't mean you have to follow it.

Carol
:)
 
I was raised on a German diet and we eat a lot more starchy foods but the bread is mostly whole grain without added dairy, fats, trans-fats etc.

We went to Walmart yesterday to get sandwich bread for my daughter's peanut butter sandwiches. She was begging for white sandwich bread (her grandmother only buys the rubber, dead bread). I said 'No because you don't want to get a bubble butt.' ' I went further 'compare how we look, what we have in our shopping cart and look in the shopping cart of the overweight people. Do you see a difference?' She noticed that the bigger people usually have white bread, sodas, honey buns, Little Debbies etc. in their shopping cart. (There are exceptions, I know but that day and time in Walmart there weren't any)

Well, a havier person overheard us and her comment was 'You people are rude' (we weren't yelling, we were just talking to each other) My response was 'Maybe we sound rude to you - but it's true' (pointing at her shopping cart). Sometimes Stereotypes just work out.;-)
 
It is an admirable goal, to eat with self discipline and balance, and enjoy it. Unfortunately, no matter how good you take care of yourself, you're going to get old, you're going to get sick, and you're gonna die. There is no food pyramid available to prevent that.

I'm writing this with a chuckle because of the way my cousin said this to my mom one day-- he sounded like Billy Crystal or Seinfeld...

Anyway I have thought about this and it figures in to my acceptance that Christ really did come here and do a job for us that we could not do.

So I like to keep diet, exercise, gardening, money, career, friends (Wayne and all of you too!) and family (and everything good and admirable) in proportion, *under* the most important thing to never forget and never sell out, that is, allegience to the One who gave it all and can take it all back.

If this seems like changing the subject,it is,:eek: }( Hey it's a bonus!Now back to the original subject!
 
Connie, I just want you to know that I know you would have absolutely no way of knowing this, but when I logged on right now after work - my heart heavy with the burden of my attitude on here yesterday and early this morning (and which actually had more to do with posts somewhere else than with here) - your post is the first one I read, and is EXACTLY what I needed to see. Thank you. I know you were an instrument today in writing this, and I just wanted you to know that.

Carol
:)
 
Connie,

Thank you for your input. It really was food for thought! But …

I think that it is erroneous to assume that everyone will get sick (disease). Not all people will get a disease and die from it. Though we all age and die. There are a lot of indigenous counties out there were disease is unheard of. And they eat a diet that is natural to them and their climate.

Now I’m not saying that disease is all diet related. Because I’m sure it isn’t, but statistics are now saying that 80% of ills are due to poor nutrition. Now I eat poorly at times, and have/am suffering the consequences (I’m sure my urination problems are due to this somewhere down the line).

While I whole-heartedly support anyone’s choice to believe and have faith in whatever they want, this topic of conversation is about food not religion. And though I find the whole “religion” aspect fascinating, (why people believe, what lead them to believe, etc, and if you’d like to tell me, I’d be more than happy to hear…) it is a touchy subject for some. Since religion is the number one cause of war. Or is that man’s interpretation of religion? I think I’m straying off topic!!! lol

Wayne.

Connie - i truly am intersted in your beliefs and would like to hear more about your faith and how and why it came about.
 
I LOVE this thread!!! All this talk of no-carb, no fat, no sugar with no mention of processed foods drives me mad!!!! I play the supermarket cart game all the time and notice the difference in my shopping cart compared to most people in front of me in line. When did we stray from "real" food???
I am so thankful my mom used to make all our plates. The portion size was right and there was a veggie, protein and carb. It used to tick me off when I was a kid but I am very glad she did it!!;-)
 
Seems most of the food we eat nowadays is "non food". Bread, bagels, pretzels, cakes, biscuits, pasta, etc...What has happened here? Butter, fat, saturated fat, meat etc...are the blame for everything, yet processed carbs are on the food pyramid as the main source of our daily intake! I don't think so! Can you believe that vegetables don't come first? Or water? Where is water on the pyramid? Isn't that the most important of all? How the palo tribles survived before processed carbs i'll never know. Study after study that goes on about saturated fat (if you read between the lines) was conducted on people that ate processed foods and sugar. These studies were not done on people that ate a "natural" diet. And this is where research fails.

Here is a study that is very often overlooked:

The Framingham Heart Study is often cited as proof of the lipid hypothesis. This study began in 1948 and involved some 6,000 people from the town of Framingham, Massachusetts. Two groups were compared at five-year intervals-those who consumed little cholesterol and saturated fat and those who consumed large amounts. After 40 years, the director of this study had to admit:

We found that the people who ate the most cholesterol, ate the most saturated fat, ate the most calories, weighed the least and were the most physically active. (mercola.com)

And another study:

In a multi-year British study involving several thousand men, half were asked to reduce saturated fat and cholesterol in their diets, to stop smoking and to increase the amounts of unsaturated oils such as margarine and vegetable oils.

After one year, those on the "good" diet had 100% more deaths than those on the "bad" diet, in spite of the fact that those men on the "bad" diet continued to smoke! But in describing the study, the author ignored these results in favor of the politically correct conclusion: "The implication for public health policy in the U.K. is that a preventive program such as we evaluated in this trial is probably effective. .(mercola.com)

Human breast milk is extremely high in saturated fat and cholesterol. And this is stuff that babies need inorder to grow strong and healthy. Funny that mother nature and God know whats best for us (fat, cholesterol, protein, vegetables, fruits, etc...) but man is telling us something else.

Wayne.
 
Hi Wayne!

Your quotes of the Framingham Heart Study and the British study are interesting. Thank God that since the Great Awakening that followed the Protestant Reformation, human scientific research, although flawed, always seeks and finds improvements over the errors of the past.

I think your proposed change to the food guide pyramid is a great improvement over the old one.

What we eat is inextricably linked to all our other lifestyle activities, which in turn are bound up in what we believe in at the core. This is one of the most important omissions of some flawed human health studies in my opinion: omission of a critical component. In the case of the Framingham study, physical activity was overlooked.
It is more important than was first imagined by the Study's designers.

If we agree that the most important benefit we are looking for is a long, happy life full of meaning, then we are at least on the same page. In the interest of good science, we must always be open to the possibility that not only our components, but even our hypothesis may lack scope.

Wayne, I'll probably tell you more about my faith in other posts. I hope this one ties your idea and mine, and makes my post look much more on topic! Thank you for your kind response to what was a result of a bee in my bonnet, which I occasionally get! }(

Now today I will try hard to plan ahead and eat right. I'll start with a nice glass of ice water.

Fondly, Connie
 
Wayne: When I read your post I thought, amen, brother!

This has been lurking in the back of my mind for some time now.

Processed food (including "healthy" cereals like Cheerios) wreaks havoc on my skin in the form of terrible acne....makes you wonder what it does to your insides.

Jen
 
Thanks to everyone for contributing to this thread. I always like to hear everyone's veiws.

Connie, thanks for your posts. Always appreciated.

Jen, i agree with you about Cheerios. I love it when people at work go on at me for putting butter on my food while they're munching on bagles, cheerios and chocolate! Makes me laugh. I've tried very hard in finding credible information in the nutrition world. It's hard to find studies that aren't funded by the food companies themselves (cause of course they ain't gonna find anything wrong with the food are they!).

Thanks again guys.

Wayne.
 

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