The new food "plate"-- not perfect, but much better!

First of all, I would just like to say a big thank you to Jenn at Girl Heroes, who featured me on her blog this week. I am honored and delighted to be part of her girl hero series!

As for the new food "plate" model:

The good: it is much, much simpler than the food pyramid, which was nearly impossible to understand and was far too heavy on grains. This one takes grains back to a more modest 25% of the plate, leaving 50% of the plate for fruits and vegetables, which is a significant improvement. Also, using a plate is a lot easier to visualize then a pyramid-- Great Britain has used a version of the plate for many years, which I always thought made more sense than the pyramid. I was taught to educate people via the "healthy plate model" which looks very much like this, and I would often draw it for patients during their appointments. It is visually very easy to grasp.

The bad: in trying to make it simple, it leaves a lot of unanswered questions (as my friend asked me when I posted this on facebook-- where's the pie group?) There is no category that discusses sugar or fat, types of fat etc (which is just as well since the current recommendations are backwards anyway). Dairy alternatives aren't suggested, and most of all-- it implies that the only thing that counts as starch is grain, which means conceivably you could have beans, a potato, a cup of white rice, lettuce and a banana, and it would all fit on the "plate", but you would have a huge dose of refined carbohydrates and almost no fat or protein.

What I would change: grains should be changed to "starch" (so grain, or starchy vegetables would fit there) and I'd make that square a little smaller, or even optional. I would change the fruit/vegetable parts to just saying fruit AND vegetables, with an emphasis on green veggies. If you are getting lots of non-starchy veggies, fruit is not as important. And of course, no adult needs dairy-- some people do okay with it, many people don't-- it does not need to be a staple of the food recommendations.

I've seen a lot of paleo people bashing this as being no different then the food pyramid, ("just the food pyramid in a circle!") but I do think it's a step in the right direction. Given the amount of conflicting information in the main-stream and the difficulty in explaining nutrition simply to the general public, this is a great stride in helping people understand what foods are appropriate in what amounts.

Nonsense and illogical arguments

I came across this article in the Chicago Tribune this morning about how "nutritionists" hate the paleo diet and was very irritated. The pediatrician in this article first of all was a very poor source of information-- I hope he was just misquoted because he came across a complete idiot. Why they chose to interview a pediatrician about the paleo diet makes no sense anyway-- the article was not about children's nutrition (though paleo, with plenty of carbs from yams and fruit is perfectly healthy for kids). What made me positively irate was this comment: "people who eat grains enriched with folic acid have reduced risk of neural tube defects, including spina bifida. Fortified grains "are cheap and there's no downside," he said." First of all, the only people who need to worry about spina bifida are women who are pregnant or may become pregnant-- you aren't going to suddenly get spina bifida at age 35 because you stopped eating grains-- it is a birth defect. Secondly, vegetables, particularly leafy green ones have SIGNIFICANTLY more folic acid/folate, which is more bioavailable and comes with way more other vitamins and nutrients than grains to which it is added (the government decided to add it to grains because people weren't eating enough vegetables-- let's cut out the middle man and just eat veg!). Third, fortified grains are REFINED carbohydrates-- whole grains are not required to be fortified. Even if you don't buy into the grain elimination aspect of paleo, most people with a clue about nutrition understand that refined carbohydrates are bad for you, and in excess lead to diabetes and likely heart disease. To say there is no downside is outrageous.

As for his other claims, that a teenage boy would not be able to afford this diet-- how many teenage boys buy their own food? And his insistence that dairy is important for everyone also bugs me-- as much as 75% of the population is lactose intolerant, and again, calcium can be obtained from many other foods.

His contention that most Americans are overweight because they overeat is overly simplistic-- if you look into why most Americans are overeating, it is because excessive amounts of refined carbohydrates cause hormonal changes that cause desire for even more carbohydrates. Numerous studies have shown protein is much more satiating then carbs, as is fat. Think about it-- most people can put away a pretty big plate of pasta or bread (ever eaten a whole loaf of bread while waiting for your dinner in a restaurant? I bet you still ate a good bit of your dinner). Then consider how many eggs or how much chicken you could eat in one sitting. WAY fewer calories because the protein/fat in the meat helps your body know when it's full. While everyone has a different tolerance level for carbs, eating a big plate of mainly refined carbohydrates for a meal is going to cause most people to either overeat, or be hungry again in an hour, if not both. (I know if I eat a mostly carb meal I still feel like eating even when I'm stuffed!) So yes, if you restrict calories you will lose weight, but it is a lot EASIER to restrict calories on a low to moderate carb diet than on a high carb diet because you don't get as hungry.

I don't have much of a problem with the dietitian's point about beans being a good source of fiber and protein, but again you can get plenty of fiber from any other fruit or vegetable and meat is a MUCH more efficient source of protein than beans, which do not contain all of the essential amino acids and for many people are difficult to digest.

Finally, I am irked by the idea that eliminating an entire "food group" is automatically unhealthy. The "food groups" were invented by the USDA, whose primary job is to promote agriculture in the US. Guess what crops we grow a lot of? Grains! Those same dietitians who freak out about eliminating the "grain food group" also tend to applaud people for becoming vegetarians. This seems ironic to me-- we are all going to die if we eliminate grains because they are a food group, but eliminating meat, also a food group, is totally acceptable. Do you know what farmers feed animals when they want to fatten them up quickly? Lots of low fat grains.

There is your rant for the day.