The Ultimate Pyramid Scheme

All pyramid schemes involve con artists and victims. Which leads us rather neatly to . . .

THE USDA FOOD PYRAMID

I see RED when I realize how bad advice becomes ingrained in our “national consciousness” and accepted as scientific truth. Our government would have us eat six to eleven servings of grain products per day. While walking through Whole Foods recently, I saw an obese woman dutifully loading her cart with Kashi Go Lean Waffles. This is the kind of healthy whole grain food that our government is telling us to eat.

This bad advice is costing us untold billions as it fuels the obesity epidemic it set out to cure with low fat foods.

 

In order to escape from diet jail, you have to quit following the advice found on the USDA Food Pyramid and that is very hard to do. This government agency pumps out advice in the form of press releases which lazy news editors and health writers pass on to their readers. School lunch program directors mandate healthy lunches based on the USDA Pyramid. And radio and television outlets broadcast the news that we’re fat and we need to eat low fat, heart-healthy whole grains and exercise more.

And fat people go to Whole Foods to buy Kashi Go Lean Waffles and cover them with margarine and diet syrup.

Because that’s what our government, doctors and talk show hosts tell us to do.

Your fat butt is the only proof you need that all of that low fat food you are eating is making you fat. The USDA’s motto might as well be, “In Carbs We Trust.”

If you trust your government to give you advice on what to eat, you should understand that the food pyramid is a result of lobbying groups like the Grain Foods Foundation and the Corn Refiners Association and every other commodities lobby on Capitol Hill. The goal is to get their commodity represented on the USDA Pyramid so that everyone will know that it’s okay to eat. And each of these associations can fund university research to prove the safety and healthfulness of their products.

Everybody wins but the consumer. Corn syrup flows into more and more packaged foods and the American Heart Association certifies them as “heart healthy.” Surgeons are kept busy. Doctors get to prescribe statins.

MORE SICK PEOPLE MEAN MORE PROFITS FOR THE DRUG COMPANIES AND HOSPITALS.

Bernie Madoff’s scheme was evil, but the damage that the USDA Pyramid is wreaking on your fat butt was a ticking time bomb that has already exploded into the “Obesity Epidemic.”

My degree is in political science and my Washington Semester term paper written in the fall of 1971 was a 106-page look at the Cyclamate Ban of 1969 and the repercussions of it throughout the food industry. I have always been fascinated by diet and nutrition. I interviewed bureaucrats and Congressional counsels. I attended hearings and talked to aides. Way back then, I discovered how much lobbying and politics goes into our Nation’s food policy.

Nothing has changed except the scope of the lobbying, which has widened as much as our bodies.

Since Zola started this diet, I have spent a lot of time blogging about the bad dietary advice.

Just for fun, let’s discover how many carbohydrates the USDA Pyramid recommends that you eat. Let’s do the math together, shall we? Let’s start with our first six servings of grain products and like good boys and girls let’s focus on whole grains. The Grain Foods Foundation suggests we make at least “half our grains whole.” That lets us have 5-1/2 servings per day of refined grains, but we’ll ignore anything with white flour in it for this project. Let’s eat:

  • 1 cup of popped popcorn                    6 g of carbohydrate
  • 1 cup of whole wheat spaghetti       37 g of carbohydrate
  • 1 cup of brown rice                             45 g of carbohydrate
  • 1 slice of whole wheat bread           24 g of carbohydrate
  • 1 cup of Kashi Go Lean Cereal       30 g of carbohydrate
  • 1/2 cup of Quaker oatmeal              27 g of carbohydrate

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You have only had six of your grain servings and have already consumed 169 grams of carbs. Your next five servings will take you near the 300 gram mark which is what some government agencies recommend to maintain “good health.”   We’ve packed away at least a day’s worth of carbs.

But we haven’t eaten our fruits and vegetables and the USDA Pyramid wants us to. We need to have at least 2-1/2 to 3 cups of vegetables and 1-1/2 to 2 cups of fruit. The smaller number is for women. The larger number is for men.

Most leafy green vegetables are low in carbs, but if one of your vegetables is a large, heart-healthy, high-fiber baked potato here’s how it adds up:

  • Large baked potato                              63 g of carbohydrate

Now you’re somewhere around 363 g of carbohydrate for the day. However, you’re a health conscious and a good American citizen. So you eat . . .

  • 1 cup of green grapes                          29 g of carbohydrate
  • 1 medium sized apple                         23 g of carbohydrate

You know what’s good for you and you know  that sweets are “discretionary” calories and should be used sparingly. You just read In the Wall Street Journal that the American Heart Association wants us to cut our sugar consumption from 20 to 10 teaspoons a day. So you had a diet soda for lunch and only had one Coke during the afternoon.

  • 1 12 ounce cola drink                          36 g of carbohydrate

You didn’t want to eat the fatty cheese, but you did drink your  . . .

  • 3 servings of skim milk                       12 g of carbohydrate EACH

That’s a whopping 466 g of carbohydrates.  Or if you had your additional five servings of allowable grains 600+ g of carbohydrate.

Insane.

Every lobby got their recommended foods on the USDA Pyramid, but apparently nobody did the math on the havoc that eating all of these servings would do to your carbohydrate consumption and, therefore, your insulin levels. If you haven’t watched Tom Naughton’s animation, Why You Got Fat I suggest you do so now.

The woman at Whole Foods has no idea why she got fat. You’re a Plan Z by Zola Insider so you now know exactly why you did and exactly what to do about it. If you are half as mad about this as I am, then I am TWICE as mad as you. That’s why I’m the VP of Anger Management.

However, I wouldn’t blame you if you went over to the window . . .

But are you mad enough to cut way back on carbs when you’re living ZLife?

Or do you think the USDA Pyramid is right and there’s just something wrong with you?

You were a victim of a horrible Pyramid Scheme, but if you continue to be a victim, you have only yourself to blame.