The USDA and Department of Health and Human Services has issued a new food pyramid, and it’s simultaneously great and appalling. On extreme upside, the Trump administration, run by someone who enjoys a quarter pounder with cheese for lunch, recommends a diet rich in protein, vegetables and fruits, while demonizing sugars, processed foods, and empty carbohydrates. On the other hand, it indicates that saturated fats are good for us. The pyramid features a thick juicy steak at the top of the pyramid, next to a roasted chicken, an enormous broccoli floret, a chunk of Emmental, a meatloaf and a packet of frozen peas. The next level down is avocado, olive oil, canned green beans, salmon and a pear. At the very bottom sits a loaf of bread, a bowl of oatmeal, and what looks to be a few pellets of birdseed.
Perhaps most curiously, the federal government has now removed the one-to-two drinks a day guideline. My doctor has always said the optimal alcohol is no alcohol at all, a judgment that my full wine rack would like to dispute. But I’m still quite skeptical when Dr. Oz, not my doctor but he plays one on TV, says, about the alcohol guidelines, “Alcohol is a social lubricant that brings people together… there’s nothing healthier than having a good time with friends.” As Lowenbrau once advertised, here’s to good friends, tonight is kind of special. But, Dr. Oz warns, “don’t have it for breakfast.”
I’ve recently been rewatching the early seasons of Mad Men, where the characters drink three martinis at lunch, alongside a dozen oysters and a nice juicy steak. The buxom wife always has a roast and an Old Fashioned ready when the husband gets home from work. That seems to be the food pyramid standard shepherded by RFK Jr. Avocados stuffed with crab meat and hearts of palm salad for everyone!
In general, one should take all government food guidelines with less than a grain of sodium per serving. A 2022 “food compass” study by Tufts University, touted by the Biden administration, concluded that Lucky Charms are twice as healthy as cheddar cheese, and that Cheerios are one of the healthiest foods on the planet, surpassed only by canned peaches and watermelon. That’s dietary lunacy.
In my house, where we talk about nutrition too much, though a lot less since we learned that the government is hiding the truth about UAPs from us, our nutrition lodestar is a sensible and extremely online Connecticut physician named Dr. David Katz. In a LinkedIn post on the new food pyramid yesterday, Dr. Katz wrote, “The current guidelines get some important things right, but so does a broken clock. They correctly inveigh against added sugar and ultraprocessed food. But they get much wrong, espousing a limit on saturated fat intake while encouraging consumption of foods, notably meat and dairy, high in saturated fat; mistaking sources of essential fatty acids; ignoring the ills of factory farming and the imperative of sustainability; and encouraging protein intake at levels unsupported by the pertinent science. This is a case study in the subordination of science and evidence to ideology.”
It makes you wonder who has the government’s ear on the food pyramid. Mr. Secretary, InBev on line one. The report wasn’t allowed to question the benefits of excessive beef consumption. “There is no science for answering questions one is not allowed to ask,” writes Dr. Katz.
The real changes to the food pyramid are mostly cosmetic. As Dr. Katz points out, no administration has ever recommended the consumption of donuts, Pepsi, or, despite the work of Tufts scientists, Lucky Charms. But it’s also been a long time since the government has told citizens that eating lots of beef is good for them and that social consumption of alcohol is healthy. We might not exactly be heading back to a Mad Men lifestyle – there is a lot of smoking in that show and they actually do drink at breakfast – but we’re definitely living in a mad, mad world.
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