A Look at the Food Guide Pyramid by Annemarie Colbin

Things are improving in the world of healthful eating. It's thrilling! The old, stodgy "Four food Groups" has been replaced by the "Food Guide Pyramid". How far we have come! And How much more before the health nuts and the mainstream meet? Not much, I think, not much.

It used to be that a balanced meal included a serving each of Meat (red meat or poultry or fish, or beans if you insist), Vegetables and Fruits (fresh, frozen, canned, or if nothing else is available ketchup or relish will do), Breads and Cereals (bleached white bran-and-germ-free bread was good enough), and Milk and Dairy (milk, cheese, yogurt, and even ice cream). In this paradigm, chemical ingredients are ignored; canned, frozen or irradiated foods are considers just as good as fresh; imitation or artificial anything is just fine (artificial sweeteners, fake fats, imitation eggs, and so on); and in case of animal foods, the methods by which they're raised (chemical feeds, loads of antibiotics, drugs for all ailments) matter little, if at all. This system favored the large food processors, as the health effects of commercial processing are not taken into account. One curious detail in this scenario, for example is that the USDA considers poultry at 1 degree F to be "fresh" (even though it's frozen rock solid). This has been the system of dietary management imposed upon our weakest populations: school children, hospitalized patients, and the institutionalized elderly. Slowly, it is now changing.

For the past two years, the Pyramid of Healthy Eating has replaced the four food groups. There was a lot of fighting in the inner sanctums of the food industry about it, but the saner nutritionists held fast and prevailed with a focus on plant foods. Applying the Pyramid (see illustration), we are now encouraged to eat 6 to 11 servings of grains, breads, and cereals; 3 to 5 servings of vegetables, 2 to 4 servings of fruit, 2-3 servings each of milk and dairy products, as well as of meat or fish or fowl or (yes) beans. Fats and sweets- admittedly unhealthy substances- are at the narrow apex, as well as sprinkled throughout, and are meant to be used sparingly; however their presence at the top of the pyramid gives a subtle message of hierarchy which may register as favorable in the subconscious. It seems to me that this pyramid encourages plenty of eating! Let's see how that might be accomplished in the average diet (numbers in parentheses are the addition of the food categories):

Breakfast: Hot of cold cereal (1) with sugar if desired, and Milk (1); fruit (1).
Snack: 1 croissant (2), coffee
Lunch: chicken (1), pasta (3), salad (2), piece of bread (4)
Snack: fruit (2), cheese (2)
Dinner: vegetable soup (2), fish (2), rice (5), carrots (3), broccoli (4), roll (6), ice cream (3, fat, sweet).

The above meal plan seems quite reasonable. It offers six servings of the cereals group, four of the vegetables, two of the fruit, two of the meat group, three of the dairy. However, the amount of servings changes with the size of them: according to the Pyramid, one serving of pasta is 1/2 cup, yet most people will at least one cup of pasta, so one serving is really two.

What makes me most pleased with this pyramid is that it is not too hard to adjust for vegetarians and other conscious eaters. If we decide that for health or other reasons we do not want to consume such foods as dairy and meat, we can make the following small adjustments and still be within guidelines.

1. We replace the Dairy group with leafy greens and sea vegetables - all high in calcium (Ca).
2. Out of the meat group we pick beans as our major source of protein, nuts and seeds as an alternate, fish and organic or free range fowl could be an option for some.

What the pyramid does not address, probably in deference to the food industry, is the importance of fresh, natural, and whole foods. So for those of us who are attentive to this aspect of the quality of foods, we can interweave these concepts, and come up with a meal plan that looks like this, more or less.

Breakfast: Oatmeal (1) with raisins (2) and sunflower seeds (1), herbal tea
Snack: rice cake (2) with almond butter (2), glass of juice
Lunch: split pea soup (3), vegetable stir-fry (1 or 2), brown rice sushi with nori seaweed (3 cereal,1 calcium group)
Snack: fruit(2)
Dinner: pinto bean chili (4), cooked greens (3 veg, 2 Ca), carrots (4), polenta (5), strawberry kanten with oatmeal cookies (3 fruit, 3 Ca from the agar, 4 grain from cookies).

This meal plan then gives us five (or six if the quantities are large enough) servings of the cereal group, four from the vegetables, 3 fruit, four protein, 3 calcium, and a little fat and sweet mixed in. As you can see, it's not so hard to do.

We can also just ignore the amount of servings suggested, and simply look at the proportion of the foods given in the Pyramid (taking minimum servings):

Grains: 6
Vegetables: 3
Fruits: 2
Milk products (or greens and seaweeds): 2
Beans or animal food: 2

Basically, the proportions are 3/2/1/1/1. If we get the protein from fish or fowl, it would be 2/5 animal foods to plants foods. If we replace milk products with greens and seaweed, the proportion would be 1/6. Compare this to the old proposition that we should eat a proportion of animal and vegetable foods according to the proportion between our canine teeth and our grinding and cutting teeth: 1/7 (4 canines, 28 incisors and molars). Close enough. To make the best used of the USDA Food guide Pyramid, we just need to eat in that proportion, and make sure that our food is fresh, natural, real (no fake foods!), free of chemicals and preservatives and whenever possible, organic.

Here is a recipe for a calcium rich dessert that also gives us a serving of fruit.

STRAWBERRY KANTEN

2 bars Kanten (agar)
or 6 Tablespoons agar flakes 4 cups apple juice
1 tsp vanilla
1 pint strawberries, washed, cleaned, and sliced lengthwise
2 Tablespoon tahini
6 almonds

1. Simmer agar with apple juice and vanilla for 4-5 minutes, until dissolved. 2. Line 6 ' shallow baking pan with half the strawberries, reserving the rest in a bowl. Carefully pour 3 cups of the hot agar mixture over the strawberries in the shallow pan, then pour the rest into the bowl. chill both until firmly set, for 4 or more hours. 3. To serve: Slice the kanten in the pan into six pieces and place on dessert plates. Break up the kanten in the bowl and puree in a blender with the tahini; pour over the firm kanten like a sauce and garnish with the almonds. Makes 6 servings.