How Turning the Food Pyramid on Its Head Can Help You “Slim Down
Without Trying”
June 22, 2013
Story at-a-glance
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While the American agricultural system is the envy of many
less affluent nations, it is a food system that promotes
subsidized cheap food largely devoid of nutrients and
chockfull of unhealthy ingredients that has caused obesity
rates to skyrocket
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There is no relationship between agricultural subsidies and
nutrition. The government’s nutritional guidelines are in
large part mirrored by these same agricultural subsidies,
rather than being built upon sound nutritional science
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92 cents of each food dollar now goes to someone other than
the farmer—it’s actually spent on the various manufacturing
and packaging processes associated with processed foods
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My food pyramid for optimal health is almost the inverse of
the original USDA food pyramid, featuring healthful fats and
vegetables on the bottom, followed by high quality proteins,
fruits, and lastly, grains and sugars, which are ideally
eliminated
By Dr. Mercola
In the video above, the late Peter Jennings reports on “how
to get fat without really trying.” Indeed, if you eat a standard
American diet (SAD), you’re virtually guaranteed to
inadvertently pack on extra pounds, even if you think you’re
eating healthy.
Presently, a full two-thirds of Americans are
overweight or obese, and childhood obesity has tripled over
the past 30 years.
While the American agricultural system may be the envy of
many less affluent nations, it also has many unintended
consequences, as Jennnings points out. One of them is a food
system that promotes cheap food largely devoid of nutrients and
chockfull of unhealthy ingredients that has caused obesity rates
to skyrocket.
If you’re like most people, you probably do not know that
there is NO link between agricultural subsidies and nutrition.
This important fact is revealed in Jennings report, and this is
a major part of the problem.
Directly related to this issue is the fact that the
government’s nutritional guidelines are in large part mirrored
by these same agricultural subsidies, rather than being built
upon sound nutritional science.
The original food pyramid created and promoted by the US
Department of Agriculture (USDA), told you that the “base” of
your diet should consist of grains, pasta and breads, despite
the evidence showing that grains, which break down into sugar in
your body, promotes fat accumulation and drives insulin
resistance and related diseases, including diabetes, heart
disease and cancer.
In short, the reason you’re told to make grains the
cornerstone of your diet is because that’s what farmers are paid
to grow in the US. There’s a lot of it, and it’s inexpensive
compared to healthier foods like vegetables, for which few
subsidies are offered.
Conventional Farming Promotes Consumption of Unhealthy Foods
There’s no denying the fact that modern agricultural
practices promote the consumption of an unhealthy diet. Today’s
sky-high rates of obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease
can be tied directly to changes in how our food has been grown
and produced over the past 40 years.
According to the Environmental Working Group1
(EWG), between 1995 and 2010, a mere 10 percent of American
farmers collected 74 percent of all subsidies, amounting to
nearly $166 billion over 16 years.
These
farm subsidies bring you high-fructose corn syrup, fast
food, animal factories, monoculture, and a host of other
contributors to our unhealthful contemporary diet.
A
report comparing federal subsidies of fresh produce and junk
food, prepared by US PIRG, a non-profit organization that takes
on special interests on behalf of the public, revealed where
your tax dollars are really going and it's quite shocking: If
you were to receive an annual federal subsidy directly, you
would receive $7.36 to spend on junk food and just 11 cents to
buy apples.
Equally astounding is the following statistic gleaned from a
recent interview with Michael Pollan,2
in which he points out that according to USDA data, 92 cents of
each food dollar now goes to someone other than the
farmer—it’s actually spent on the various manufacturing and
packaging processes associated with processed foods.
“We’re not going to undo that unless we buy more
directly from farmers and buy unprocessed food,” he
says.
And I think that’s a crucial point, really. Imagine if food
growers could get most or all of each food dollar instead of it
being spent on plastic wrappers and food processing! Then they
might actually be able to afford growing something other than
corn, soy and wheat, which are three of the unhealthiest staples
of the processed food industry...
Following USDA Diet Recommendations Is a Recipe for Obesity
Some of you may be old enough to recall the
1992 Food Pyramid, which had grains as the largest bottom
block of the pyramid, encouraging you to eat 6-11 servings of
bread, cereal, rice and pasta each day. This excess of
carbohydrates, most of them refined, is precisely the
opposite of what most people need to stay healthy. At the
very top of the pyramid was fats and sugar, and while sugar
clearly belongs there, healthy fats do not. In fact, most people
would benefit from getting anywhere from 50 to 70 percent of
their total calories from healthy fats!
The food pyramid was replaced with “MyPlate”3
in 2011, which slightly downplayed grains as the most important
dietary ingredient, making vegetables the largest “slice,” but
it still has a long way to go before it will offer a meal plan
that will truly support your optimal health.
One of its most glaring faults is that MyPlate virtually
removed all fats from the equation! In fact, except for a small
portion of dairy, which is advised to be
fat-free or low-fat, fats are missing entirely... There is
no mention of the importance of dietary fats, even the
"politically correct" ones like the monounsaturated fats in
olive oil and nuts, such as pecans (canola oil is also in this
category, but I advise avoiding it and using coconut oil
instead).
Of course, one of the most important of the healthy fats is
animal-based omega-3, which is also absent from the plate.
Deficiency in this essential fat can cause or contribute to very
serious health problems, both mental and physical, and may be a
significant underlying factor of up to 96,000 premature deaths
each year. For more information about omega-3's and the best
sources of this fat, please review this
previous article.
Not surprisingly, the US government still has not
acknowledged the ever mounting data showing that
saturated fat is actually an incredibly healthy, nourishing,
and all-natural fat that humans have been thriving on for
generations. It provides the necessary building blocks for your
cell membranes and a variety of hormones and hormone like
substances that are critical to your health. Saturated fats from
animal and vegetable sources (such as coconut oil, avocado,
non-CAFO meat and dairy, also provide a concentrated source of
energy in your diet.
When you eat fats as part of your meal, they also slow down
absorption so that you can feel satiated longer, which helps
curb overeating. In addition, they act as carriers for important
fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K, and are needed for mineral
absorption and a host of other biological processes. To get
these healthy saturated fats in your diet, you need to
eat animal foods like butter and other full-fat raw dairy
products and eggs, yet these foods are still demonized by the
establishment.
What a Food Pyramid Based on Nutritional Science Really Looks
Like
In an effort to remedy the situation, I’ve created my own
food pyramid for optimal health (below), which you can print out
and share with your friends and family. My pyramid, which is
based on nutritional science opposed to agricultural subsidies
and industry lobbying efforts, is almost the inverse of the
original USDA food pyramid, featuring healthful fats and
vegetables on the bottom. Again, most people would benefit from
getting at least 50 percent of your daily calories from
healthful fats such as avocados, coconut oil, nuts, and raw
butter. In terms of bulk or quantity, vegetables should be the
most prominent feature on your plate. Veggies provide countless
critical nutrients, while being sparse on calories.
Next comes high quality proteins, followed by a moderate
amount of fruits, and lastly, at the very top, you’ll find
grains and sugars. This last top tier of sugars and grains can
be eliminated entirely, and your health just might
become the envy of everyone around you... While this may sound
impossible to some, I can attest to the fact that quitting carbs
is doable. In fact, once you’ve successfully switched
over from burning carbs to burning fat as your body’s primary
fuel, carb cravings actually disappear, as if by magic. There
are two primary ways to achieve this metabolic switch, and these
strategies support each other when combined:
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Intermittent fasting: I prefer daily
intermittent fasting, but you could also fast a couple of
days a week if you prefer, or every other day. There are
many different
variations. To be effective, in the case of daily
intermittent fasting, the length of your fast must be at
least eight hours long. This means eating only between the
hours of 11am until 7pm, as an example. Essentially, this
equates to simply
skipping breakfast, and making lunch your first meal of
the day instead
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A ketogenic diet: This type of diet, in which
you replace carbs with low to moderate amounts of high
quality protein and high amounts of beneficial fat, is what
I recommend for everyone, and is exactly what you get if you
focus on the bottom three tiers of my food pyramid
Other Atrocious Health Recommendations That Drive Obesity and
Disease Rates
Make no mistake about it, obesity is the result of
inappropriate lifestyle choices, and unfortunately, our
government has spent decades disseminating astoundingly
inaccurate information about diet and health. In many ways, the
US government has become little more than a propagator of
corporate-sponsored propaganda. The following is just a tiny
sampling of the pervasive misleading information on weight and
obesity disseminated by our government agencies:
- “All sugars are equal, and are okay in
moderation:” The
science is overwhelmingly clear on this point:
fructose and
glucose are NOT metabolized by your body in the same way.
For example, while every cell in your body utilizes
glucose, thereby burning up much of it, fructose is turned
into free fatty acids (FFAs), VLDL (the damaging form of
cholesterol), and triglycerides, which get stored as fat.
Furthermore, the entire burden of metabolizing fructose
falls on your liver, which creates a long list of waste
products and toxins, including a large amount of uric acid,
which drives up blood pressure and causes gout. It also
promotes visceral fat.4
When you eat 120 calories of glucose, less than one
calorie is stored as fat. 120 calories of fructose results
in 40 calories being stored as fat. As a standard
recommendation, I advise keeping your total fructose
consumption below 25 grams per day, or as little as 15 grams
a day if you have insulin resistance, diabetes, high blood
pressure, heart disease or are overweight
- “To lose weight, just expend more calories than
you eat:” This outdated advice has been shown to be
patently false, as not all calories are created equal. In a
nutshell,
counting calories will not help you lose weight if
you're consuming the wrong kind of calories
- “Choosing diet foods will help you lose weight:”
Substances like
Splenda (sucralose) and Equal or Nutrasweet (aspartame)
may have zero calories, but your body isn't fooled. When it
gets a "sweet" taste, it expects calories to follow, and
when this doesn't occur it leads to distortions in your
biochemistry that actually lead to weight gain
- “Avoid saturated fat to protect your heart:”
The myth that saturated fat causes heart disease began as
little more than a scientifically unsupported marketing
strategy for
Crisco cooking oil. Most people actually need about 50
to 70 percent of their diet as healthful
fats from organic, pastured eggs, avocados, coconut oil,
real butter and grass-fed beef in order to optimize their
health
- “When it comes to cholesterol levels, the lower
the better, to avoid heart disease:”
Cholesterol is
actually NOT the major culprit in heart disease or any
disease, and the guidelines that dictate what number your
cholesterol levels should be to keep you "healthy" are
fraught with conflict of interest -- and have never been
proven to be good for your health. Meanwhile, bringing your
cholesterol levels down too low can have significant health
ramifications, from mood disorders and violence to,
ironically,
heart disease
Yes, You Can 'Slim Down Without Even Trying...'
Once you realize the root of the problem, which begins with
agricultural subsidies that are based on economics and have
nothing to do with growing nutrient dense foods for the masses;
which in turn has spawned dietary recommendations that are
also based on industry profitability opposed to nutritional
science, then it becomes easier to understand why a full
two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese. Even the
education of
registered dietitians is sponsored and taught by the junk
food industry!
Sadly, these deeply flawed dietary recommendations fuel the
nation’s poor health scores, and drive the now colossal health
industry, which in turn is run by the pharmaceutical industry...
It’s really one big vicious circle.
You CAN break free, however.
Perhaps one of the most powerful scientific discoveries to
emerge in the past several years is that the old adage “a
calorie is a calorie” is patently false. The research clearly
demonstrates that even if you control the number of calories you
eat, if those calories come primarily from fructose and grains,
you are at increased risk of obesity and pre-diabetes, which
includes both insulin- and leptin resistance, fatty liver, high
blood pressure and high triglycerides. Insulin- and leptin
resistance in turn form the foundation for virtually every
chronic disease you can think of, including heart disease and
cancer.
The answer, therefore, is to turn the conventional food
pyramid on its proverbial head, and dramatically reduce or
eliminate virtually all grains and sugars, especially
fructose. This in and
of itself will go a long way toward preventing accumulation of
excess fat. However, to be truly effective, you want to make
sure you’re replacing those refined carbs with vegetables and
healthful fats.
Now you’re entering into a diet that will allow your body to
shift from burning carbs to burning fat (or ketones) as its
primary fuel. At this point, weight loss is not the only benefit
you’ll reap. Compelling research shows that this type of diet,
also referred to as a
ketogenic diet, is an effective prevention and even
treatment strategy for cancer.
Intermittent fasting is another powerful key that will help
you transition your body from obtaining the majority of its fuel
from glucose stored as glycogen in your muscles and liver, to
the fat stored in your tissues. This is one of the most
effective ways I know of to burn off excess body fat and
eliminate sugar cravings. These are all things that are well
within your power to do. Next, I urge you to become involved
with changing the system that has brought us to this unfortunate
point in our evolution.
Growing sprouts in your home is a powerful way to eat very
healthy and inexpensively.
Changing your shopping patterns by supporting local
agriculture will not only help improve your health, it will also
help improve the environment and bring back our rural
communities. One way to get involved is to simply buy more food
from your local farmers. It is important to understand the
impact you have when you spend your money on processed factory
food. For more information on how to find locally-grown foods
and farmer’s markets, please see my
Sustainable Agriculture page. I would also encourage you to
support the Environmental Working Group in its current efforts
to renew America’s food and farm policies through the farm bill.5
© Copyright 1997-2013 Dr. Joseph Mercola. All Rights Reserved.
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