I grew up with the food pyramid. While I'm a bit older than the food pyramid of the 80's, it's certainly all I specifically recall about nutrition. For those of you who are unfamiliar, the base of the pyramid was the bread and cereal group. the next level up was the fruit and vegetable group, and the top level was the meat group.
The new food pyramid, implemented under Robert F. Kennedy Jr., current Secretery of Health and Human Services, has not quite flipped that on its head by recommending a base of fruits and vegetables, with meat in the middle, and grains at the top of the pyramid.
Before I go any further, I need to state for the record that I believe RFK Jr. is a conspiracy theorist nutjob, and as such, I'm generally disinclined to give credence to anything he says. In this specific case though, there may be something to what he's saying. (Hey, I'm more interested in truth than I am in discrediting people with whom I disagree; truth is more important than pride.)
And while I also hold a disdain for Fox "News," I will credit them for getting me to re-examine my original skepticism regarding the new food pyramid. The gist of what got me to reconsider my preconceived bias was an article that pointed out how obesity really exploded around the time that the old food pyramid came out. This also corresponds with when the medical community started encouraging low fat diets.
Now I'm going to pull in my history, because it's important to this story. I grew up as a Midwest kid, meaning I was raised on meat and potatoes... and the potatoes were usually smothered in butter. There were certainly fruits and vegetables served with each meal, much to our youthful disgust. Breakfasts consisted of unsweetened cereal, but I always corrected that travesty with heaping teaspoons of granulated sugar on my Cheerios. My point here is that my childhood diet didn't exactly follow the dietary guidelines of the day.
I'm going to gloss over the diet of my late teens and early 20's for a couple of reasons: 1) At a macro level, most young adults tend to have a $h!++y diet. I feel this is partly because young adults a) tend to go wild and eat the things they were denied as children, b) tend to lack the skills and materials to cook for themselves, or c) lack the financial resources required for a well-rounded diet. 2) In my specific case, I was in the military, so my nutritional needs were generally met at the chow hall.
After the military, wife 1.0 did most of the cooking, but I did have a reasonable amount of influence over our diet. After we split, I became master of my dietary destiny, though wife 2.2 did manage to sway some of my culinary tastes and practices. With my dietary history out of the way, let's talk about my personal experience.
I should start by sharing a bit about my physical condition. I'm sharing this because in this specific case, my physique directly impacts my credibility. I have no formal education or training in this area, so I can only share my experience. And with that in mind, I'd have zero credibility if I were shaped like a marshmallow. Conversely, if I had the build of a bodybuilder, I'd have outsized credibility. So, let's say this...
I'm 57 years old
I'm about 5'10"
I have never weighed more than 165 lbs. in my life.
I currently weigh about 155 lbs, and have for 20+ years.
I am physically active. I can run 3 miles in about 30 minutes. I can do about 7 pull-ups. When I do a toe touch, my knees are locked, and my middle knuckle can touch the floor. I can swim a mile in about 45 minutes.
In other words, I'm going on 60 and am in better physical condition than the vast majority of young adults.
Okay, getting back to the nutrition discussion... as a kid, I was taught a low fat diet based on the food pyramid. The reality was close, but it was more of a food cylinder. I ate way more meat than suggested. I consumed far less grain than recommended. I probably ate about the right amount of fruits and vegetables.
I carried this personal preference into my adulthood. I formally realized my dietary preferences and practices somewhere in my mid 30's. That's about the time I started calling my diet the food cylinder. Here's a general overview of what my diet looks like:
As implied by my "food cylinder" comment, I tend to eat meat, dairy, grain and fruits/vegetables in about the same amount. My meat is primarily poultry. Red meat is a medium-distant second, and fish falls waaay behind red meat. My dairy intake is almost exclusively cheese, but I eat a lot of it. I don't do much milk, yogurt, etc. My fruit and vegetable intake weighs very heavily toward vegetables. My grain intake is generally bread, tortillas and tortilla chips, all of which lean toward whole grain.
I consume very little fried food. While I grew up sauteing in butter, I changed to olive oil. I rarely eat dessert. When I do eat sweets, it's usually one or two kid-sized snickers or reese's, a little ice cream, or a slice of cheesecake.
I tend to eat a small brunch and a larger dinner.
I generally drink water, and occasionally treat myself with 100% fruit juice.
My dietary indulgences are salt and beer.
After I pondered all of this, I grudgingly realized that RFK jr. may be onto something. If you take a look, the two common items that are most glaringly absent from my diet are highly processed carbohydrates, sugar, and highly processed meat. That's what really got my attention from RFK's new food pyramid... it's about highly-processed food. Anecdotally speaking, grain-based food is most susceptible to excessive refinement. Think about it... at a fundamental level, chips and cookies are about the easiest foods on the planet to over-process. Furthermore, grain-based food is the cheapest to produce and consume, because they have a crazy long shelf life.
Now that I've said this, I MUST remind you, dear reader, that correlation is not causation. Furthermore, if you take my word as authoritative, you are likely falling to the hasty generalization fallacy. I am not trying to present myself as an authority in this area. All I'm doing is sharing my experience, and acknowledging that I've been given food for thought. (No pun intended.) As is usually the case, I encourage you to do your own independent research, specifically focusing on viewpoints that challenge your own preconceived notions.
