Actual healthy food pyramid

[Ban]

You'll never hear me make a case for artificial sweeteners, but we have been ingesting (losds of) beer and bread since the days of Sumer, so I do have my doubts over the absence of grain on your pyramid. But I am biased by my own perceptions. As long as I am in good health, at the end of the day I wouldn't be swayed anyhow into abstaining from grains. What's a Netherlands without jenever, haha?

 

[Prince of Spires]

The bullet-proof logic goes like this:
1. Fact: If you eat less meat, you lose weight.
2. Fact: If you eat less cake, you lose weight.
3. Conclusion: Meat and cake are the same.

Though I like the logic, the sad part is that you didn't prove bacon and vegetables are the same... I can still only eat limited amounts of cake and bacon. Though you do now have me wondering about bacon-cake recipies. After all, bacon goes with everything...

 

[Jackarandajam]

Though I like the logic, the sad part is that you didn't prove bacon and vegetables are the same... I can still only eat limited amounts of cake and bacon. Though you do now have me wondering about bacon-cake recipies. After all, bacon goes with everything...

Well bacon has to be made of vegetables.
It could only be made of meat if pigs were carnivores, that's just common sense.

I will say be careful with meat pies.
And beefcakes.
You can only eat half as much of either as you can one or the other because they're both.

 

[Queshire]

I vote we petition the Gods to make sugar good for us

Ah, but it is good for us.... so long as we're living a hunter-gatherer lifestyle where a source of quick, easily digestable calories is both rare and useful.

 

[LittleOwlbear]

I rather go with the one that lots of carbs in them ... I said while cooking pasta.

Also for the second pyramid: daily weight control is crazy, that makes people overly self-conscious.
Sold my scale years ago, that was a great decision.

 

[Aldarion]

I rather go with the one that lots of carbs in them ... I said while cooking pasta.

Also for the second pyramid: daily weight control is crazy, that makes people overly self-conscious.
Sold my scale years ago, that was a great decision.

Not to mention that it is entirely possible to be fat and underweight. Or have fatty liver while being underweight.

 

[Devor]

Also for the second pyramid: daily weight control is crazy, that makes people overly self-conscious.
Sold my scale years ago, that was a great decision.

Yeah, I wish it said portion control. Daily weighing is not for everyone.

 

[Jackarandajam]

Yeah, I wish it said portion control. Daily weighing is not for everyone.

I think the little plate on the bottom right is supposed to mean portion control.

 

[pmmg]

Yeah, I wish it said portion control. Daily weighing is not for everyone.

But, every time I weigh in its like setting an new record....why wouldn't I want to do that?

 

[Vaporo]

Here's my take on all this: The only good nutritional advice I've ever been given is that all nutritional advice and dietary science is just made up guesswork.

I think a lot of people figure out a diet they enjoy but also keeps them in decent shape. Then, they get defensive when some random piece of "dietary science" tells them something they're doing is suboptimal and so go off a result preach their chosen diet to whoever will listen. No diet is perfect. EVERYTHING has been shown to cause cancer. You just have to experiment and find out what works best for you.

Personally though, I think the real problem isn't usually any particular food or dietary imbalance, it's that we're simply eating far too much and not getting enough exercise.

In my case, I lost 80 pounds when I moved out of my parents' house a few years back. By a lot of metrics, my diet got a lot worse. TONS of red meat and butter. I jokingly call it the "bacon and sausage diet." But, I started exercising, and I didn't have anyone pushing excess food onto me anymore, so I still lost weight.

Now, I really only follow a couple of rules: Don't eat after I feel full. Minimal sugar, minimal processed seed oils. If it was available circa 1850 odds are it's all right to eat so long as I'm regularly getting my heart rate up and maintaining it above 160-180 to clear the junk out of my blood. I try to fast a few days a week as well. I try to "listen to my body." If I'm craving something, odds are there's something in that food I need. Conversely, if eating something just sounds like it would be miserable, even if it's something I'd usually enjoy, I pass on it.

In my experience, there's nothing wrong with grain and bread in and of itself. Homemade bread is leagues above storebought though, both in terms of health and flavor. I make a loaf of bread about every other week, and haven't bought bread in a year or two. Just don't stuff yourself with it unless you're planning to run a marathon.

Also, supposedly a lot of so-called "gluten intolerances" and the like are caused by reactions to the pesticides used on the grain. I can't verify it and have never had any trouble myself, but you may try springing for the "organic" flour if bread makes you feel wrong.

I'm convinced that most leafy green vegetables are only around because they're effective stomach filler for a starving medieval farmer and we just haven't had the good sense to stop eating them yet. I also believe that 95% of minor health glitches can be solved by running 5k every day.

That said, always remember the only good nutritional advice: All nutritional advice is bad.

 

[Aldarion]

Yeah, I wish it said portion control. Daily weighing is not for everyone.

I think the little plate on the bottom right is supposed to mean portion control.

Portion control on its own is useless. Many people will simply reduce portion size... and then increase number of portions, so they will end up back where they started. Rather, you just need to learn to listen to your own body... if you do that and are eating healthy food, you don't really need portion control. Basically, don't eat until you are hungry (intermittent fasting is a great way to actually learn what hunger means - many people today think they are hungry when they are not!), eat slowly (so that your body has time to tell you "I am not hungry anymore" - good way to do that is to eat with chopsticks) and don't overeat (so eat until you are not hungry anymore - not until you are "full" because that actually means you have overeaten!).

One big but filling meal a day is better than dozen mini-meals, for many reasons. Also, while weighting is useful, it is (for men at least) more important to track your waist-hip ratio. That will tell you basically everything you need to know about your health and progress... weighting is more for morale support than anything. (Your WHR should be in 0,8 - 0,9 range ideally).

Here's my take on all this: The only good nutritional advice I've ever been given is that all nutritional advice and dietary science is just made up guesswork.

Yes and no. But the only part that is not "made up guesswork" is a simple statement that it is better to eat foods humans are biologically adapted to - meaning that more recently the food was introduced, less of it you should eat (so basically, limited fruit*, less grains and least processed food).

Other than that, dietary advice is more of a guideline than a rule: you can use it for inspiration, but because each person is different, you will eventually need to figure out what works for you specifically. And even with the above advice, you should listen to your body and modify it as needed: some people cannot tolerate meat, some cannot tolerate fruit, meaning that any list (such as the pyramid in the OP) is merely a principle to base diet on rather than strict prescription to follow. For some people it may indeed be best to throw out everything but meat, others will eat less or no meat and base around vegetables and fruit... and so on.

* Unless you can find fruit that had not been modified and hybridized by humans. Modern fruit you can find on market has little in common with the fruit we have actually evolved to eat.