The food pyramid -- a monolith that has stood intact since 1992 -- has undergone a major overhaul. In April 2005, the U.S. Department of Agriculture unveiled a new pyramid, this one featuring colorful vertical bands to represent different food groups. When properly decoded, the new pyramid provides reasonable guidelines for healthy eating. The bad news: For most people, this particular pyramid will be about as clear as Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Unlike the trusty old pyramid, with its tiny pictures of bread and other staples and the recommended number of daily servings clearly spelled out, the new pyramid doesn’t include pictures of food. It doesn’t make any references to servings, either. Instead, the architects made some of the colored bands wider than others. The orange band, representing grains, is the widest. The yellow band, representing oils, is the thinnest. The message is that you need more grains than oils, but you already knew that. The pyramid also features a set of stairs with a figure climbing to the top, a reminder that exercise is part of a healthy lifestyle.

Overall, the picture is colorful, eye-catching, and largely useless. "The image does not convey a whole lot of nutritional information," says Geoffrey Greene, PhD, professor of nutrition and food sciences at the University of Rhode Island.

In order to get any kind of specific recommendations from this new system, you have to go to the USDA’s new Web site http://www.mypyramid.gov. Once there, you can enter your sex, age, and activity level to receive one of twelve sets of guidelines. The new guidelines are based on sound nutritional theory, but few people will be able to easily put this information into action, Greene says. He calls the guidelines "difficult, complicated, and unworkable." If you visit the site, you'll see what he means.

Each guideline starts with a recommendation for daily calories. For example, an active 35-year-old woman is advised to aim for 2,200 calories a day. And how should she get there? Here’s the actual advice:

•Fruits: 2 cups

•Vegetables: 3 cups

•Grains: 7 ounce equivalents (at least half of which should be whole grains)

•Meat and Beans: 6 ounce equivalents

•Milk: 3 cups

•Oils: 6 teaspoons

•Discretionary calories allowance: 290 calories.

The guidelines also break down vegetables into five different categories. Our active 35-year-old woman is told that her weekly diet should include 3 cups of dark green veggies, 2 cups of orange vegetables, 3 cups of legumes, 6 cups of starchy vegetables, and 7 cups of "other vegetables."

Put it all together, and you have an excellent blueprint for healthy eating. But how many people have a kitchen scale? How many measure their oil by the teaspoon or their fruit by the cup? And how many people know how to stop at 290 calories when they're dishing up a bowl of ice cream?

The site does provide links to a list of helpful tips, although it takes a bit of expert navigation to find them. After a few clicks, you can find a chart that explains the concept of a "cup of fruit." One-half cup of dried fruit counts as a cup. So does one large apple, two medium plums, eight large strawberries, and 32 seedless grapes.

If you’re not sure what an "ounce equivalent" means, you can check out the fine print. According to the guidelines, both a slice of bread and a ½ cup of cooked pasta are said to count as an "ounce equivalent" of grain. Likewise, one ounce of lean meat or poultry is equivalent to one egg or ½ ounce of nuts.

You might also be curious about the term "discretionary calories allowance." If so, the provided explanation won’t help much: "Discretionary calorie allowance is the remaining amount of calories in a food intake pattern after accounting for the calories needed for all food groups -- using forms of foods that are fat-free or low-fat and with no added sugars." (It doesn’t get any clearer the more times you read it, but what it basically means is this: If you eat the lowest-fat versions of the recommended daily foods, and they don’t include added sugar, you’ll have some calories "left over" at the end of the day to spend the way you wish. If, for instance, you have a mixed green salad with low-fat dressing for lunch instead of spinach au gratin, you might have some room for a treat at the end of the day.)

Even if you wade through all the information and figure out what the terms mean, the pyramid still lacks some key information, according to Dr. Michael Potter, an attending physician and associate clinical professor at the University of California in San Francisco. "The biggest issue the pyramid misses is that people simply need to eat less -- portion size and calorie counting are discussed, but not in enough detail," says Potter. "People are generally not good at judging portion sizes and counting calories, and until we find a way to help people to simply consume fewer calories there will continue to be an obesity epidemic."

Why tinker with a classic icon? One reason is that the old pyramid, displayed prominently on many food packages and in countless schoolrooms and doctors' offices, never truly became an effective tool for public use. "Eighty percent of people can recognize the pyramid, but only 3 to 4 percent actually follow the guidelines, " said John Webster, director of public information at the USDA's Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, in an interview before the new pyramid was unveiled.

In addition, the science of nutrition has evolved in the last dozen years -- especially when it comes to carbohydrates and fats -- forcing experts to reconsider the pyramid, brick by brick. Something else has changed since the early 1990s: American waistlines. As rates of obesity continue to climb, the United States clearly needs to rethink its approach to food. With all this in mind, the USDA collected input from more than 200 American nutritional experts with the goal of making the pyramid more modern, user-friendly, and effective.

The new pyramid makes some important distinctions that were missing from the old pyramid. Most notably, the new guidelines stress that at least half of all grains should be whole grains. Whole grains provide fiber, vitamins, and minerals, and, unlike processed grains, they don’t cause a spike in blood sugar. Under the old system, a bowl of whole-wheat cereal wasn't treated differently than a bowl of white macaroni.

Intrepid surfers who are willing to dig deep into the site will also find the latest thinking on fats. While the old pyramid lumped all fats into one category, the new guidelines make a distinction between saturated fats and unsaturated fats. While saturated fats found in butter, margarine, and animal fats raise the risk of heart disease, it points out, growing evidence suggests that unsaturated fats found in vegetable oils and fatty fish can actually protect the heart.

On the whole, the new pyramid stands on a solid foundation. With its new emphasis on physical activity, whole grains, and colorful vegetables, it should help steer people to a healthier, trimmer future -- if they have an Internet connection, some patience, and a whole lot of motivation.

-- Chris Woolston, MS, is a health and medical writer with a master's degree in biology. He is a contributing editor at Consumer Health Interactive and was a staff writer at Hippocrates, a magazine for physicians. His reporting for CHI on occupational health earned him an award from the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists.

References

First published March 24, 2004
Last updated November 30, 2007
Copyright © 2004 Consumer Health Interactive

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