The New Food Pyramid
South Park predicted this
The South Park clip that predicted this…
So here’s what happened.
RFK Junior said it was TERRIBLE that nearly half the scientists on the board that sets the USDA food guidelines every five years worked for and were paid by big meat and big dairy, while only just over half had no such conflicts.
I’ve always agreed with this. There should be nobody setting our food guidelines who makes their money based on what we eat. That’s a clear conflict of interest.
Here’s how RFK fixed the problem.
He fired the scientists who did not have financial conflicts of interest, keeping only those with financial ties to big beef, big pork, and big dairy. In addition, he brought in couple of new folks who make their money from the Low Carb Diet hoax industry.
Now nearly 100% of the committee who decide what to tell us to eat, make money based on what we eat. 9 out of 10 members declared conflicts of interest.
The rules for creating this committee clearly state that it must be balanced. There can be some people with food industry ties but they can’t be the majority, and they have to disclose their conflicts of interest. These folks did disclose. Boy did they disclose. The list of industry ties is multiples per person. These folks are really cashing in!
To be clear the scientists on this USDA committee are being paid to watch out for the interests of the various big food industries. And so that’s what they did.
The Major Changes in the Guidelines
Meat and dairy have been moved to the very top of the pyramid.
They have doubled the amount of protein recommended per day, from 0.8 to 1 grams per pound of body weight, to 1.2 to 1.6 grams per day, and it pushes hard for those grams to come from red meats and whole fat dairy products.
They have removed the emphasis on whole grains, and reduced them to the tiniest spot on the pyramid. (This seems like a perk given to the members of the board who work for the low-carb diet
hoaxindustry.)They now emphasize whole fat dairy, red meat, and processed meats as “healthy fats.” They state that, “The war on saturated fat is over,” and tell us to get 3 servings of full-fat dairy per day into our diet.
This set of guidelines has removed warnings against red meat and processed meats, which are category 1 carcinogens—same category as tobacco and plutonium
They took away warnings to avoid sugar-sweetened drinks and instead encourage them, using “real cane sugar” as if it’s a good thing.
They did add a suggestion that most of what we drink ought to be water. One positive out of the entire disgusting con job.
In the small print buried deep, they kept the old recommendation of keeping one’s saturated fat intake below 10% of total calories. 3 servings of whole fat dairy per day would put you over the top of 10% of your calories from sat fat. So their recommendations contradict one another.
RFK Jr. gets hold of a good idea, then somehow spins it into something awful.
“Refined oils are bad,” he says. Ding ding ding ding! Brilliant insight. He must’ve read a book.
Then he goes on, “So use animal fats like pig lard and beef tallow instead.” Bonk! Terrible suggestion. Deadly, even.
The basis for the changes
The new recommendations cite a handful of studies. However, when you go to look at the studies cited, not one of them supports any of the changes they made.
There’s a small sampling of the real scientific studies that prove the opposite at the very bottom of this post. Be sure to scroll through.
Here are the highlights from all those studies
Adding 50 grams of whole grains (a couple of tablespoons) per day reduces:
All-cause mortality (death) by 16%
Cardio-mortality (death by heart attack) 18%
Cancer mortality (death by cancer) 12%
But only 2% of USAmericans get the recommended 3 servings per day.
More from the attached studies
Dairy products cause Alzheimer’s as well as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, breast cancer, and prostate cancer.
Saturated fat is the leading cause of heart disease, which is in turn our leading cause of death.
No study done has ever shown any health benefit from consuming either low-fat dairy or full fat dairy.
Consuming animal proteins INCREASES all-cause and cardio mortality
Consuming plant proteins DECREASES all-cause and cardio mortality
Adding 50 grams of legumes (peas, beans, lentils) per day reduces all-cause mortality 6%
Swapping beans for meat as a protein source reduces all-cause mortality 9% and risk of Type 2 Diabetes by 12%
Sugar-sweetened beverages (pushed by this document as something good. “Real cane sugar,” they sing,) and processed meats are the most health-harmful things in American diet.
Adding insult to injury
They added warnings against a vegan diet, listing a whole alphabet’s worth of vitamins and minerals it says are at risk in such diets, and again cites a study that says nothing of the sort. Real studies show that vegans are HIGHER in several of the minerals listed. They just flat out lied in this case, as in many others.
The actual science shows that all humans on the planet probably need a B12 supplement, vegans included. Humans who live where daylight is scarce and sunlight is indirect for all or part of the year should also take a D3. Vegans need no supplements that the rest of humanity does not also need.
There is nothing in a carnivore diet that you can’t get from plants. Be aware the animals being eaten—herbivores, all—got all the nutrients their meat contains from the plants they ate before they were killed. Vegans get them straight from the source—plants themselves.
The new guidelines make the protein myth official
The US RDA is a different set of numbers, and has not been changed. That’s something to know. And it lists the recommended daily protein intake at 0.8 to 1 gram of protein per kilogram of weight.
Even when that recommendation was made, it was acknowledged by the scientists that it was the TOP amount. Some very active people might need that amount, and with half the panel being on the big meat payroll, they opted for the highest number in the range indicated by science. For most of us who are neither athletes nor body builders, 0.6 - 0.7 grams per pound of body weight is plenty of protein.
Science has shown us that excess protein is harmful to our health. Excess animal protein turns on mutated cancer genes. Without it, they might well stay dormant, not producing cells. But when we wake them up, they begin making cancer cells, and nothing is better at waking them up than animal proteins. This has been shown in study after study after study. And also in some of these studies, the mutated genes shut back down when the animal proteins were removed from the diet.
Now these brand new guidelines nearly double the already admittedly high amount given by the RDAs along with pushing a pro-saturated fat agenda, which is a pro-meat agenda. The only places I know of where you can get saturated fat from plants is in avocados and coconuts. All other sources are all animal products.
So people who pay any attention to this upside down food pyramid are going to be eating far too much saturated fat, and the proteins that come with it. Casein, the protein in dairy, is a big cancer causer.
Heme iron, which comes from meat, damages cells, causes inflammation, and those things lead to cancer. Nitrates in processed meat are known carcinogens, again on the same category as tobacco and plutonium.
Cooking meat increases the risk, the higher the temp, the higher the risk. But not cooking the meat risks a quicker death by e-coli, trichinosis, toxoplasmosis, salmonella or many other potential killers
Meat is just a losing proposition.
But we already know this if we know the most basic things about how the universe works. What we give is what we receive. If we kill for food, that food must kill us in return. It cannot be otherwise.
Plants, on the other hand, give of themselves freely. As they mature, the plant dies, leaving its fruits behind to be devoured by the animals who live around it, and that includes humans. Apples fall to the ground from the trees. Potato vines die, leaving their treasures buried beneath them. Grain heads grow heavy with seed and pull the whole stalk to the ground. The squash vines die, leaving their beautiful gourds behind for us to enjoy. Even mycelium, with their underground neural network creating an internet for the trees and plants around them, sprout up fruits in the form of mushrooms. They bloom and die unless we pick and eat them.
Enjoy this collection of time lapses of the way mushrooms grow. It’s mesmerizing.
So peaceful, that video. Can you imagine getting such a peaceful feeling watching animals being slaughtered? No way. How so many of us still think it’s okay to participate in that trade is beyond me.
The Exam Room Podcast, by the Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine has an entire episode on this on the new food guidelines and the inverted pyramid. I’m including it below. The Physician’s Committee is petitioning the FDA to recall these new recommendations, on grounds that they’re not based on any known science, study, or research. They did this successfully once before, for similar reasons, and that time they won.
Keep your fingers crossed it works.
Oherwise, use common sense. Believe science. The majority (like 80-90%) of our calories should come from complex carbohydrates in the form of fruits, veggies, whole grains and legumes. The majority of our protein (6-8% of total calories) should come from beans, lentils, nuts and seeds, and whole grains. The majority of our fat should be the natural fat found in plants, which is unsaturated and brings a whole lot of fiber with it to mitigate the harm the fatty parts could otherwise do.
We do not need full fat dairy products or meat for protein.
In Summary
If people follow these newest guidelines, they’ll be more likely to develop heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, high blood pressure, inflammation, and many forms of cancer. People who believe the advice of RFK Jr.—who has zero medical, scientific, or nutrition training—will die years younger than they otherwise would have.
We need to follow and share resources we know we can trust, who aren’t being paid by any part of the food industry, for our information about what’s healthy.
Free ways to educate yourself include reading here. You can also subscribe for free to the following:
The Plantstrong Podcast - Rip Esselstyn
Nutrition Facts - Dr. Michael Greger
The Exam Room Podcast - Dr. Neal Barnhard (Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine)
That should be enough to get you a solid basis for developing your OWN nutritional guidelines.
Hint: the top, middle, and bottom of a legitimately healthy food pyramid would all be filled with same foods. Whole plant foods. Fruits, veggies, legumes, whole grains, nuts, berries, vinegar, and tofu, maybe little maple syrup here and there.
For a more formal, accredited, Cornell-associated course of study, you can take the T. Colin Campbell course on plant-based nutrition. I keep my certificate proudly on display in my kitchen. Right now they’re offering 20% off the tuition. Click below to learn more.
And I’ll see you next weekend!
Need an escape?
So does she!
Here’s that list of studies proving RFK Jr doesn’t know shit about nutrition
References (AKA all the studies that prove RFK Jr. is a dangerous, deadly, dumbass)
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