Change The Food Pyramid? Is The Food Pyramid The Reason We’re Living in a Carbohydrate Culture?
Sugar is fun! Or is it?
Think fancy birthday cakes with pink, purple, and gold decorations … And those sugary breakfast cereals and cookies with the colorful boxes? It’s a party!
Too much sugar in our food? It happens. Fuhgeddaboudit.
But isn’t it strange how sugar is advertised in such exciting ways? And everybody’s eating sugary snacks on television, right? … makes you wonder …
In fact, sometimes choosing the more-natural sweeteners seems boring because they are not presented as primo options. By more-natural sweeteners, I mean things like Stevia (most common,) Monk Fruit, and Erythritol (great for Keto and low carb baking.)
And here’s an even stranger thing: why is it so difficult to find a tasty snack sweetened entirely with a natural sweetener? And when you do find a snack sweetened with a natural product, it’s often mixed with refined sugar additives.
Look, this is what recently happened to me: I decided to try a new chocolate snack that was advertised as extremely healthy; and it was even promoted by a fitness professional whose picture was on the box! I was taking a break from the Keto diet at the time, so I decided not to read the label.
But when I unwrapped the snack and took a bite, I knew something was wrong. Surprised, I hesitantly took a peek at the label and realized that this “healthy snack” had a large amount of sugar! (Why was I surprised?)
Then I began to wonder: just how did our society become so accepting of this? Why do so many common grocery-store products emphasize refined sugars and carbs?
How did we become a carbohydrate culture?
When I was growing up, sugar in foods was pretty much accepted, and the only recommendation about sugar (that I can recall) was simply “don’t eat too much of that flashy, irresistible Halloween candy.”
And responsible adults giving out buckets full of sugary Halloween candy is still a common sight on television, while it is only the laughable odd-ball neighbor who gives out the healthy snacks.
Why choose a carrot stick when you can have a high-sugar candy bar in a flashy, exciting wrapper? Anyway, TV says it’s okay. (Note to self: dip carrot sticks in Stevia-sweetened chocolate and cover them in shiny wrapping paper for next Halloween!)
We often forget that eating too many carbohydrates can not only cause weight gain by storing calories as fat but may also cause you to develop “insulin resistance,” bringing on type II diabetes.
And you could also become something called “carb-intolerant” … carb intolerance happens when just taking one bite of that donut makes you experience tiredness, bloating, flatulence, and/or abdominal discomfort.
While sugar and added sugars are obvious culprits in the over-consumption of carbohydrates, it often seems that other sources of carbohydrates are overlooked. Bread (including bagels and (yes) donuts, what?), pasta, rice, and cereals (often with sneaky carb content.)
You go out for a pasta meal and what comes with it? Free bread sticks. You order a pizza and what is offered as dessert? Chocolate Lava cake with a bazzilion carbs. You go out for a work lunch, and what comes with? French fries and those gooey-sweet cinnamon roll bites you can’t resist.
Guess what? it seems like there’s a culture war between carb-loaded menus and your waistline.
Dietary rules to live by?
In a book by Robert Lufkin, he points out that in 1977, US Health and Human Services put out official dietary suggestions
— “dietary rules to live by” — urging the American public to increase their carbohydrate consumption up to 55 or 60 percent of the calories consumed per day, and to decrease their fat intake to 30 to 35 percent of daily calories consumed.
It is important to note that this directive about carbohydrates could cause people to add from six to eleven servings of carbohydrates to their diet per day!
The upshot of this was: people seeking a healthier lifestyle began to load up on carbs and decrease fat consumption. While there’s nothing wrong with cutting down on fat, increasing the amount of carbs in the daily diet could present some problems.
In fact, if you had diet-conscious parents, who conscientiously followed all the rules (you were proud of them for this,) you may have developed unhealthy eating habits simply because your parents were abiding by those original dietary guidelines that over emphasized carbohydrate consumption.
I remember when a professional friend of mine decided to visit a nutritionist, trying to figure out why he could not lose weight. He was surprised to learn that consuming too many bagels in his daily diet was causing his weight gain; so, he cut back on bagels and lost the weight.
But as it happens, he was actually eating according to those original dietary suggestions, which would have encouraged him to eat four to six full-size bagels each day! But instead of making him lose weight and become healthier, surprise! Over emphasizing breads in his diet made him gain weight!
Fun fact for you, many commercially available breads have a glycemic index that is on the high side.
The glycemic index is a system that rates foods according to the effect they are expected to have on your blood sugar.
For instance, non-starchy vegetables like broccoli and green beans have a low glycemic index, such as fifty or below; while potatoes (a starchy vegetable) white bread, donuts and greasy fast food (tastes so good) all have a glycemic index listed as 70 or above, or a high glycemic index.
In my opinion, this over-abundance of carbohydrates in our food can be traced back to the food pyramid, an educational tool showing a pyramid shape with various food groups arranged by the importance of each.
Let me explain …
So, Lufkin explains that when the original food pyramid came out in 1992, it was based on those same archaic, government-sponsored health guidelines dating back to 1977 … guidelines that advised — even urged — people to consume a higher amount of carbs!
Over the years, I have had several required health classes that made me memorize that original food pyramid and reproduce it for a test, even though I wasn’t sure I agreed with its suggestions.
And what I’m thinking is this: considering all of the educational emphasis that was placed on the food pyramid diagram back in the day, it is likely that many people made friends with that original food pyramid (emphasizing extra carbs,) went on and graduated, never questioning their nutrition again.
But with the appearance of Atkins and Keto diets, society’s attitude toward consuming carbs seems to have changed.
Reading Lufkin’s book, it dawned on me that even though dietary guidelines have morphed and developed over the years, many people in our society are still stuck back in the days of the original food pyramid … the one they learned when they were younger.
And this high-carb-equals-healthier myth may have become ingrained in the culture, due to this abundance of misleading nutritional advice given out in the early days.
For example, if you eat two pieces of toast and/or a big bowl of cereal for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch (several pieces of bread) — a cookie in your lunch Tupperware — a dinner roll and some white rice, plus dessert at dinner … any way you slice it, that’s a lot of carbs.
So, how many carbohydrates should you eat each day? Well, nobody really seems to have the answer to that question. While some suggest it is 100 grams of carbohydrates per day, I have heard recommendations for daily carb intake amounts that range from 25 to 60 grams per day!
In my experience, the most successful diets have protein, non-starchy vegetables, and easy to prepare, homemade keto snacks – like fat bombs — as basic components … along with serious restrictions on carbs.
Using the example of Genghis Kahn, Lufkin points out that Kahn and his hugely successful band of Mongolian warriors ate a carnivorous, high protein diet composed mostly of mutton (sheep steaks) and dairy products.
It is thought that the Mongols’ diet — based on animal products — gave them a sincere advantage over the carbohydrate-heavy grain-based diets of those they subdued.
(I am not discouraging vegetarianism, but as a former non-lacto-ovo (no milk or eggs) vegetarian, I have learned the value of allowing some protein from animal sources into my diet, especially yogurt and eggs.)
After a bit of research, I found that there are many versions of the pyramid out there, and you can choose your own, preferred version; but generally, bread and ice cream are shown at the top, in the smallest section of the pyramid.
Okay people, when you place an item at the top of anything — as in “top of the list” or “top dog” — you are basically saying that it’s the most important thing in the group. And emphasizing carbs by making them “top tier” is the opposite of what we want to do.
In other words, putting carbs on “top of the pile” may be confusing the message.
I think it’s fair to say that we should throw out the food pyramid altogether and use a different shape for the diagram, one with ascending circles of various sizes, and the bottom, smallest, most unappealing circle represents carbs
In general, it seems to me that disagreements regarding a healthy carb intake have created a certain murkiness in the area of suggested dietary guidelines for current times, and this points to a sort of “think for yourself and do your best” mentality that may be the new normal.
Three points I’d like to leave you with:
- People who do not become laser focused on the amount of carbohydrates they eat — each and every day — will often find weight loss challenging.
- People who eat fast food every day for lunch will often find weight loss challenging. (Fast food = sneaky/extra carbs.)
- If you switch from sugar to pure Stevia, you probably will lose weight. But when ordering Stevia, it’s best to choose a version with the words “organic” or “original” on the label to get the purest product, because finding the purest product (these days) can be challenging. I also prefer to use the liquid Stevia for purity’s sake.
For comments on artificial sweeteners check out my article: 7 common things that can make you gain weight
Looking to go low-carb? Check out my article: How I lost 30 pounds in three months the natural way: Diets!
Baking with Almond flour is a great way to cut carbs. Check out my article on how to make my Chocolate Almond flour mug cake. Click here to access my Chocolate Almond flour mug cake recipe!
This article was written by Vanna Silverwood, medical writer and outspoken advocate for natural medicine. See more at simplynaturalmedicine.com. Encouraging stability, helping you clarify your health goals … we are always “Natural by nature!“
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I’d like to share my favorite Keto diet book with you. It’s by Clinical nutritionist, Josh Axe … Keto Diet: Your 30-day Plan to Lose Weight, Balance Hormones, Boost Brain Health, and Reverse Disease. This book is a complete guide to the Keto diet, which is like a balanced diet with a spotlight on cutting carbs. I’ve used it myself with awesome results!
Click here to access Josh Axe’s Keto Diet book on Amazon!
And, as mentioned above, here’s medical doctor Robert Lufkin’s book … Check out Lufkin’s Lies I taught in medical school: In this book, Lufkin relates the way some of the rigid, medically-accepted ideas he learned in school didn’t work for him when he, himself, got sick, and then explains how he modified some of that information to deal with illnesses he had developed over time.
Click here to access Robert Lufkin’s insightful book on Amazon!
Click here to access Liquid Stevia on Amazon!
Click here to access Erythritol: granulated (like table sugar) on Amazon!
Click here to access Confectioner’s Erythritol on Amazon!
Click here to access Blanched Almond Flour on Amazon!
Sources
Glycemic Index. (n.d.). National Cancer Institute.
https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cancer-terms/def/glycemic-index.
Grant, Kara. (n.d.) What counts as a low carb diet and is it right for you? WebMD. https://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20240207/what-counts-as-low-carb-diet.
Lufkin, R. (2024). Lies I taught in medical school: How conventional medicine is making you sicker and what you can do to save your own life. BonBella.
Raikar, Sanat Pai. (2024). Food pyramid. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/science/food-pyramid.
Weinandy, L. (2017). Carb intolerance could be the reason weight loss is difficult. The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.
https://wexnermedical.osu.edu/blog/carb-intolerance.
What is the glycemic index? (2021). The Cleveland Clinic. https://health.clevelandclinic.org/glycemic-index.1