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Let's get real here: the benefits in the USDA Food Pyramid are benefits for agribusiness and the big subsidized food producers. The benefits that the USDA pushe
by AStonesThrow 2y ago
Let's get real here: the benefits in the USDA Food Pyramid are benefits for agribusiness and the big subsidized food producers. The benefits that the USDA pushes have nothing to do with good nutrition for the average citizen. This is 100% "regulatory capture" as we call it around here. The Food Pyramid is a scam and a hoax, and the more it can be ignored, the better.
When I joined a Christian Health Sharing ministry, they determined that I needed remedial help, due to hypertension and dyslipidemia. They assigned me to monthly virtual meetings with a dietician. The dietician's advice horrified me, because it would've made me sicker, and exacerbated my conditions. I approached the ministry's administrators, requested a replacement dietician, and they replaced her alright. The new dietician had basically the same credentials and the same letters after her name, but she was way more flexible, listened to my reasoning, and supported my choices with encouragement.
My parents followed every "diet fad" in the 1970s-1980s, from 2% milk, to margarine, to yolk-less-egg-whites, to reducing red meat, to low-sodium everythings, to bottled fluoridated water. It was sheer torture and disgusting. My mother didn't know the first thing about flavor or pleasure in cooking, and never used the spices in her rack. Our food was always bland. For breakfast she'd slap down a jug of milk, a box of Chex, a bowl and a spoon, and abandon me to go do housework. I would sit there and read the mendacious lies known as "Nutrition Panel" on the side, and simply stewed in my resentment for the whole thing. It's a travesty.
- KempyKolibri 2y agoTbh I know it’s not what you’re going for, but your parents’ dietary decisions generally sound based AF (apart from bottled fluoridated water - depending on the fluoride levels in your drinking water that may or may not be beneficial). Chex, I suppose it depends on whether it was wholegrain or not. Wholegrain cereal is associated with pretty good health benefits, refined not so much.
- tsimionescu 2y agoReplacing butter with Margarine is "based AF" now?
- literalAardvark 2y agoGiven the knowledge available to them in the 70s, yes. A mistake, but done for good reasons (lowering satfat).
- KempyKolibri 2y agoProblem in the 70s was trans fats. Now they're no longer a risk, replacing butter with margarine is a solid evidence-based decision for one's health (though not so much for one's enjoyment!).
- literalAardvark 2y agoHang on, there's such a thing as non-trans margarine? Sheesh, I'm behind the times. (And really, margarine can be plenty tasty. As a kid I actually preferred it to butter for some reason.)
- KempyKolibri 2y agoLiterally all of them now (in the US and UK at least). Trans fats in industrially produced foods are banned.
- literalAardvark 2y agoNot entirely, pastry still has lots of trans fats, but they're probably essential.
- AStonesThrow 2y agoOkay, the cereal commercials in the 1980s: they would have some ridiculous cartoon mascot and sing a catchy jingle about their sugary cereal treats, and then at the end, they were legally required to say "Part of this balanced breakfast" while displaying a tray laden with fresh fruit, buttered toast, perhaps a glass of orange juice. https://youtu.be/reLIPoZQZ-8?si=lLXfhsdm89zlOWsI https://youtu.be/reLIPoZQZ-8?si=lLXfhsdm89zlOWsI Those commercials played multiple times a day in my childhood, and they never failed to piss me off, because they clearly demonstrated that "milk and a box of Chex" was not by any means a "balanced breakfast".