Food pyramids of the world: from the sublime to the ridiculous

Food pyramids can be a useful tool for both advising people on what they should eat and also to represent what people actually ARE eating. Here’s some from around the world…

This is the bog standard food pyramid (source USDA).

I’m sure most of you are familiar with this. It’s the old USDA food pyramid giving the weightings of the foods to be consumed in the day based upon number of portions.

However it was felt that is needed to be redrawn to emphasize variety in food as well as throwing some emphasis on exercise as part of the picture. All very commendable but as far as I am concerned it’s neither use nor ornament.

Why?

Because you usually get this:

The new USDA ‘Food Triangley Thingamebob’

But to make any sense out of it at all you need the notes:

The USDA ‘Bit That Makes The Triangley Thing ame Make Sense’

Which of course you rarely see added, ah and another thing…. TOO MANY WORDS PEOPLE! A tool has to be right for the job, this is not right for public education. If you like a read you can see more detail HERE.

So these two are graphic representations of what the health profession think we should be eating (though of course not everyone agrees…)

(from the paleo diet newsletter)

So if this is what we should be eating what are other healthier people eating? What other examples are there from around the world and what can they teach us? Healthier peoples include:

The Mediterraneans

Sound east Asians

The Japanese

Graphically very Japan I think you’ll agree. This is an education tool common in Japanese schools though thoughtfully someone has shown what a government sponsored food pyramid might look like

(Both from iamaviking.com lots of good beer info there if you’re into that)

Here’s an interesting representation of a healthful south American diet

Latin dietary pyramid

The enlightened folks of the Ivy League came up with this one

Harvard food pyramid (source: wikipedia)

So lots of fruit and veg, whole grains etc would seem to be the way forward for health, or would it…..?

Pyramids the dieticians hate

Like every set of rules though there are examples that don;t seem to fit the mold. If I asked you to name a population famed for the low incidence of heart disease then you might mention the Inuit of northern Canada. Heart disease rates are going up now they have started to adopt a western diet, the only problem as far as standard dietary advice goes is their traditional diet looked a little like this

The Inuit food Igloo (from second-opinions.co.uk)

Keep eating that low fat diet people!

What is odd about this of course is

1. the huge amount of fat

2. tiny amount of vegetable matter ( < 10% with ~0% wholegrains)

3. the near absence of cardiovascular disease in traditional populations

This traditional diet moves us into the realm of Paleo Eating. In a nut shell eating as close a diet as possible to those of our forefathers long before the (first) agricultural revolution transformed our meal times.

The Paleo pyramids

Paleo people are a proactive bunch and never shy about coming forward with pyramids of their own. No one seems to mention that there were as many paleo diets as there were places to live on the globe. Anyway, here’s one meant to ape the old USDA standard format:

Basically very very little in the way of grains or dairy as these are foods consumed mostly post agricultural revolution. This is another nice example with some helpful advice included for making this a little more practical:

Too much veg for you? Too busy chucking spears at wilder-beast to worry about plants? No worries, here’s a more meat heavy representation, remember these go by servings so actual volumes may be different:

I quite like this one from a blog post HERE

….. yes, you’ll have to replace the joy of spaghetti with the joy of sex.

Of course we all know a vegetarian or even a vegan:

Vegan Pyramid

And of course there are many more too choose from in the diet industry many of which of course have their own food pyramids, from A-Z, here’s an example from the nice folks at Atkins.

Or The Zone, which helpfully reminds us that water is also important

(not an official Zone graphic by the way!)

My take?

I waver somewhere between The Zone in terms of amounts of foods and Paleo in terms of food choices however everyone has their on needs and of course exercise is important:

The CrossFit pyramid

Of course groups and belief systems have their own guides as well. Here’s one from the nice metempyrions.

Metempyrion pyramids

‘Who or what is a ‘Metempyrion’!?’ I hear your cry. More info HERE don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Now as we know not all diets and not all peoples are healthy. The USDA food pyramid is what the US government would like it’s population to eat sadly for many it is closer to this:

The real food pyramid?

(source: curioussigns.blogspot.com )

Except on Saturdays of course when something like the following is more appropriate:

The Game Day Pyramid (source: www.wizznutzz.com )

Of course you’re wondering, ‘what does my paranoia about the sometimes questionable food industry practices in the developing economic superpowers mean for the graphic representation of the foods I eat’?

Glad you asked.

Paranoia pyramid

…or what about the zombies? No one should be left out

OK I’ll stop now.