Diet and Nutrition

A proper diet and keeping a daily routine of good nutrition is one of the cornerstones of good health. In this day and age, there are many kinds of diets the information and links provided are just a start. Remember that any change in your personal diet should be coupled with a consultation with your personal physician.

What Should You Really Eat?

A decade ago, the U.S. Department of Agriculture created a powerful and enduring icon - the Food Guide Pyramid. This simple illustration can convey in a flash the elements of a healthy diet. Today it is taught in schools, appears in countless media articles and brochures, and even shows up on cereal boxes and food labels.

Unfortunately, the information embodied in this pyramid doesn't point the way to healthy eating. Why not? Its blueprint was based on shaky scientific evidence, and it hasn't appreciably changed over the years to reflect major advances in our understanding of the connection between diet and health.

A panel of experts now at work revising the USDA's pyramid could create a newer, healthier guide. But that would be a surprise, given that it comes from the branch of the U.S. government responsible for promoting American agriculture, not health.

As an alternative to the USDA's flawed pyramid, faculty members in the Harvard School of Public Health built the Healthy Eating Pyramid. It resembles the USDA's in shape only. The Healthy Eating Pyramid takes into consideration, and puts into perspective, the wealth of research conducted during the last ten years that has reshaped the definition of healthy eating.

The USDA Pyramid Brick by Brick

Distilling nutrition advice into a pyramid was a stroke of genius. The shape immediately suggests that some foods are good and should be eaten often, and that others aren't so good and should be eaten only occasionally. The layers represent major food groups that contribute to the total diet. The current USDA Food Guide Pyramid contains these elements:

• Bread, Cereal, Rice, and Pasta Group (6 to 11 servings)
  Carbohydrates are a fundamental part of most diets. Part of the rationale for placing them in the base of the pyramid was that if people filled up on carbohydrates they would eat less fat. When the USDA pyramid was built in 1992, the main message for Americans was "fat is evil." But not all fats are bad and not all carbohydrates are good.
• Vegetable (3 to 5 servings) and Fruit (2 to 4 servings) Group
  A diet rich in fruits and vegetables is one of the best ways to keep yourself healthy. If there's anything close to being "proved" in nutrition research, it's that eating lots of fruits and vegetables reduces the risk of heart disease, some types of cancer, and other chronic diseases. The U.S. government's "5 a day" campaign makes five servings of fruits and vegetables look like a goal when it should actually be a lower limit.
• Meat, Poultry, Fish, Dry Beans, Eggs, and Nuts Group (2 to 3 servings)
  This is essentially the protein group. Everyone needs protein to keep tissues healthy and keep the body running smoothly. Some sources of protein are better than others, yet the USDA Food Guide Pyramid equates heart-healthy fish with bacon and bologna.
• Milk, Yogurt, and Cheese Group (2 to 3 servings)
  Healthy bones need calcium, which dairy products can supply. (They also need exercise and vitamin D.) But most people don't need the amount of calcium supplied by three servings of milk (1,000 milligrams) a day, and there's some question that dairy products are the best way to prevent osteoporosis, the bone-thinning condition that affects many older women and men.
• Fats, Oils, and Sweets (Use Sparingly)
  When the Food Guide Pyramid was built, policy makers wanted to send Americans a simple message for preventing heart disease: Eat less fat and you will have a better cholesterol level and a healthier heart. The fat phobia spawned by this message probably had little impact on heart disease. But it may have contributed to the current epidemics of obesity and diabetes as people replaced fats with fast-burning carbohydrates. The fat-is-bad message also keeps people from eating healthy fats - monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats.