Food Inc American food pyramid A Fatally Flawed Food Guide

by Luise Light, Ed.D

2004

As a new Food Guide to replace the Food Pyramid is being considered, it appears our nutritional needs are being sold to the highest bidder ... again! Nutritionist Luise Light, a former USDA insider and an architect of the original version of the Food Pyramid — that never saw the light of day — describes the fatal flaws of a government bowing to industry interests.

A former vice president of the National Pork Producers’ Council is looking for new ways to educate us on how to eat right. As the director of nutrition and health promotion for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Eric Hentges, PhD, is considering catchy jingles and website information to replace the Food Pyramid guide next year. The USDA says that too many consumers are confused by the government’s Food Pyramid and can’t figure out how to implement the recommendations in the guide, citing the fact that two out of three Americans are too fat.

But perhaps many Americans did follow the Food Pyramid and that’s why they ended up overweight! Let me explain.

Back in the early ‘80s, I was the leader of a group of top-level nutritionists with the USDA who developed the eating guide that became known as the Food Guide Pyramid.

Carefully reviewing the research on nutrient recommendations, disease prevention, documented dietary shortfalls and major health problems of the population, we submitted the final version of our new Food Guide to the Secretary of Agriculture.

When our version of the Food Guide came back to us revised, we were shocked to find that it was vastly different from the one we had developed. As I later discovered, the wholesale changes made to the guide by the Office of the Secretary of Agriculture were calculated to win the acceptance of the food industry. For instance, the Ag Secretary’s office altered wording to emphasize processed foods over fresh and whole foods, to downplay lean meats and low-fat dairy choices because the meat and milk lobbies believed it’d hurt sales of full-fat products; it also hugely increased the servings of wheat and other grains to make the wheat growers happy. The meat lobby got the final word on the color of the saturated fat/cholesterol guideline which was changed from red to purple because meat producers worried that using red to signify “bad” fat would be linked to red meat in consumers’ minds.

Where we, the USDA nutritionists, called for a base of 5-9 servings of fresh fruits and vegetables a day, it was replaced with a paltry 2-3 servings (changed to 5-7 servings a couple of years later because an anti-cancer campaign by another government agency, the National Cancer Institute, forced the USDA to adopt the higher standard). Our recommendation of 3-4 daily servings of whole-grain breads and cereals was changed to a whopping 6-11 servings forming the base of the Food Pyramid as a concession to the processed wheat and corn industries. Moreover, my nutritionist group had placed baked goods made with white flour — including crackers, sweets and other low-nutrient foods laden with sugars and fats — at the peak of the pyramid, recommending that they be eaten sparingly. To our alarm, in the “revised” Food Guide, they were now made part of the Pyramid’s base. And, in yet one more assault on dietary logic, changes were made to the wording of the dietary guidelines from “eat less” to “avoid too much,” giving a nod to the processed-food industry interests by