Video Transcript – New Food Pyramid

Hello. My name is Dr. Bryan Royer. I’m here to give you some Healthy Hints for Harmony. Today’s topic is the New Food Pyramid. Now, most people are familiar with the food pyramid, but it has changed a bit over the years. And actually, it’s no longer a pyramid it’s actually called My Plate, but there’s been a couple of different problems with the Food Pyramid because it’s not necessarily made exactly for your health. It is made in general with the help of lobbyists.

The group that actually is in charge of it is actually the US Department of Agriculture, the USDA, and as opposed to something like the Food and Drug Administration, which would make a lot more sense. But the USDA is actually in charge of that. And basically, lobbyists have input in there; way more than they should.

So when I talk about lobbyists, I talk about groups like the dairy group, where with the ‘Got Milk?’ slogan and pork, where it talks about the other white meat, and even the sugar industry, they actually have lobbying groups as well. The thing is that things like asparagus, asparagus doesn’t have a lobbying group, so you don’t get as much emphasis on fruits and vegetables as what we should. So, basically there’s a couple different versions of the food pyramid, and there’s a couple different versions that different organizations or different countries have. And I’m gonna show you a couple of those and along with what I think is actually gonna be the best option for us.

So this is the old version of the food pyramid. Notice in this one, they have some hierarchy where some foods are good and some foods aren’t so good. And you should try to limit sugar. It says, use sparingly here, but part of the problem is that they lump in the good fats with the bad fats. And down at the bottom, grain has way more importance than it should.

This is an updated version of the food pyramid, but notice how lobbyists got involved. They got rid of the hierarchy so there’s no more, some things are better than others, kind of a thing. And they did add exercise, which is the thing on the left, which is a good thing, but again, grains are still one of the main things to eat.

Now, this is My Plate and I think that this is a good improvement. There are some things that are problematic with it, but that’s just how the whole food pyramid thing works. In this one grains are still a little bit too important, but vegetables have gotten a little bit more important here, but there is no hierarchy. So there is no eat less of this food and eat more of that food.

Here’s an example of a Mediterranean diet, which has been proven to be very good for us, but grains are still a little bit too important in my opinion. Now this is a paleo diet version of a pyramid. Grains are missing, which I think is okay, but it’s not practical for most people. I don’t think that most people need to completely eliminate grains from their diet, but reducing the amount of grains that you eat is gonna definitely affect the amount of chronic inflammation that you have. I think this is a good thing that you can get ideas from. But part of the problem is that it gives you no ideas on serving sizes or what to actually put on your plate. Which is one of the reasons why I think that the whole My Plate idea is actually not such a bad concept.

Now, this is my version of what I think that your plate should look like. First of all, you wanna fill up about half of your plate with vegetables. That’s gonna be one of the most important things. I don’t think that we all need to be vegetarians, but I think that we need to eat more vegetable in general.

The second thing is that grains are actually listed as an option, but they’re not the vital part of the meal. You could either use fruits or you can use grains either, or. And both of those are gonna be helpful for you, but that’s also gonna prevent you from having too many carbohydrates during the meal in order to prevent you from gaining weight. And again, one of the things that’s in here is don’t forget about the water.

Again, I don’t think that everybody needs to get rid of grains completely from their diet, but I do think that limiting the amount of wheat or corn or some of the other ones is not necessarily a bad idea. By reducing the amount of grains that we have in our diet we’re going to reduce the amount of inflammation in general, in our bodies and reduce the amount of chronic problems that we have long-term.

Now, again, I think that the food hierarchy is good. I do think it’s a good idea to tell people that there are certain foods that are gonna be better for you to eat, like fruits and vegetables and some foods that you need to eat less or eat basically as rarely as you can like sugars and different things like that. There are good fats and there are bad fats and there’s different things. And there’s a lot of different complexity that can go with it.

But basically the idea is that fruits and vegetables should be the staple in your diet. We should also have some kind of a protein, if you’re a vegetarian, you should have some kind of a protein. If you eat meat, then something like grass-fed beef would be a good thing or free range chicken. Those would be good ideas of lean animal proteins that we could have.

Now, grain is not necessarily the thing that you have to completely get rid of in your diet, but it shouldn’t be the staple. Again, when it comes to grain, grain is one of those things that has a lot of empty calories in it. It doesn’t have a lot of nutrition overall. And you can take a look at my episode on whether or not why grains are bad for you or, are grains really good for you. You can take a look at that to see whether or not, what your opinion is on grains with that.

But again, grains are not something that should be the staple of your diet. We have a hard time processing grains, and it takes a little bit. Now, granted, if the option is starve or eat grains, then obviously somebody should eat grains. But again, if you have the opportunity to eat fruits and vegetables, fresh fruits and vegetables, that’s gonna be your best option.

Thank you for watching my Healthy Hints for Harmony. Please check out my website at www.harmonychiro.com. Thanks a lot for watching.