Healthy Eating Pyramid
Did you know that Harvard’s Healthy Eating Pyramid is different to the USDA Food Pyramid/MyPyramid?
The USDA food pyramid, gave more weight to grains & breads and fruit & vegetables. It is particularly focused on the idea that fats are bad for you.
Why does the Harvard School Of Public Health think this is not a healthy way to eat and why do they think it’s fundamentally “flawed”?
"Unfortunately, the information embodied in this (USDA) pyramid doesn't point the way to healthy eating. Why not? Its blueprint was based on shaky scientific evidence*, and it hasn't appreciably changed over the years to reflect major advances in our understanding of the connection between diet and health.
As an alternative to the USDA's flawed pyramid*, faculty members in the Harvard School of Public Health built the Healthy Eating Pyramid. It resembles the USDA's in shape only. The Healthy Eating Pyramid takes into consideration, and puts into perspective, the wealth of research conducted during the last ten years that has reshaped the definition of healthy eating"**.
So, what are their thoughts on healthy eating?
This original was updated along with their site, in 2008, to:
Note:
1. On the bottom of the Harvard Healthy Eating Pyramid is:
a. Exercise
b. Weight management
c. Portion control
2. Fruits and veggies have worked their way progressively down the pyramid.
3. Good oils & fats have regained favour
4. Multivitamins are now on the menu. I personally recommend Body Balance for all the minerals and vitamins that aren’t in our foods because of the deficiency of our soils.
What’s the benefit to you of following the Healthy Food Pyramid?
"When combined with not smoking and regular exercise, this kind of healthy diet can reduce heart disease by 80%, and stroke and some cancers by 70%, compared with average rates in the United States."
Sounds good. But is that the best you can do for yourself? What might we see in future healthy food pyramids?
Our changing recommended food pyramids say three things to me:
1. We don’t yet have a complete understanding of what is a healthy diet.
2. The current healthy eating pyramid will change as our understanding progresses: "The Healthy Eating Pyramid summarizes the best dietary information available today. It isn't set in stone, though, because nutrition researchers will undoubtedly turn up new information in the years ahead. The Healthy Eating Pyramid will change to reflect important new evidence."**
3. The thing to be aware of is there will be a time lag. As much as 20-30 years before something is known till the time it becomes major public knowledge.
Do you think it would be better for you to wait that long or do you want to know now?
The Future Pyramid.
From my reading and eating adventures I think the next change is going to come from one of the basic problems that underlies all pyramids.
That's the "one size fits all" problem. The main tenet behind all previous pyramids has been that we should all be eating the same thing and if we could only get it right we'd all be happy!!!
Yeah right!!!!!!
Enter the idea of biochemical diversity - what if we metabolise foods differently and that one person’s food could actually be another person’s poison?
The best research I have come across on this is from William Wolcott. His work on Metabolic Typing could change the face of the food pyramid for all of us and at the same time offer us three to choose from.
And I want to preface that "three to choose from" idea by saying it's more like a continuum.
Think of a line from 1-12
1-----2-----3-----4-----5-----6-----7-----8-----9-----10-----11-----12
Protein type-----------------Mixed Type-------------Carbohydrate Type
Protein Type. 1-4 with the purest form being 1.
Carbohydrate Type, 9-12. 12 representing the purest form.
Mixed Type 5-8 the middle ground between Protein and Carbohydrate Types where you can mix it up and be a little of both.
How do you know which type you are?
Think about what you truly hunger for in terms of protein?
If you lust after red meats then you sit in the protein type.
If red meats don't do anything for you but chicken and fish now they really turn you on, then you are looking at the carbohydrate type.
If you really like to mix it up then you sit in the middle – the mixed type.
Along with this I think we will see grains move further up the pyramid and right for your type proteins move further down.
Until I get a graphic made you will need to imagine a pyramid wrapping around these lines:
Top
Mineral & Vitamin Supplements
Dairy products or calcium/magnesium/Vit D3 supplements
Grains (if at all)
Nuts, seeds, beans, tofu, healthy oils and fats
Right protein for your type
Fruit and Vegetable (except pototoes)
Daily Exercise and Weight Control
Bottom
What’s the benefits for you of eating like this?
As well as having physical and mental energy, how about eliminating or majorly reducing most of the degenerative diseases of the western world? Heart disease, strokes, cancer, autoimmune diseases and a host of other things
.
I have spent hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars getting to the bottom of this but the material that drove the message home the most to me is from Dr Dwight Lundell.
Dwight retired from his position as a heart surgeon to get the truth of what he has found about healthy eating to you.
In his ebook he shows the science he has discovered that proves how the inflammation he saw in people’s arteries is caused by a high carbohydrate, low fat diet like that recommended by the USDA Food Pyramid/MyPyramid.
As he says: "Yes, there's a cure for heart disease but let me be clear - I cannot cure heart disease but you can. Anyone and everyone who reads this book will be able to save more lives than I ever could as a heart surgeon."
Where to from here?
My recommendations are:
1 Get your daily minerals and vitamins from products like we have available with Body Balance & OsteoProCare or OsteOmegaCare
2 Identify your Metabolic Type and eat according to it. If you need motivation as to why you want to eat like this and to get clear on what tests you should have and which ones you shouldn't have, get Dwight’s ebook
3 Regular exercise. Here is my recommended form of exercise. It's time efficient and effective. Plus if you ever do have a heart attack it is designed to increase your chances of surviving. (If you do nothing you only have a 50:50 chance of surviving your first heart attack)
4 Pay attention – your life depends on it.
*Emphasis added.
** Unless otherwise stated, all quotes are from the Harvard site or from “Eat, Drink & Be Healthy – The Harvard Medical School Guide To Healthy Eating” by William C. Willet, MD – the originator of the Harvard Healthy Eating Pyramid.
For a fuller explanation, download “The Healthy Eating Pyramid – Past, Present and Future” pdf
For the Harvard site
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