The New Math of Good Eating

Squares, triangles, circles…the U.S. government (specifically, the U.S. Department of Agriculture) has worked its way through the major geometric shapes in the past few decades while trying to convince a reluctant American public to eat better.  There was the Four Food Group model of the mid-twentieth-century (that’s the square), the Food Pyramid of 1992 (triangle), and now, coming soon, the Dinner Plate of the new millennium (circle). Yet somehow, we’re fatter and less healthy than we were even 20 years ago. Why does practically nothing the government says about good eating seem to get any traction?

1950s eating: oh-so-simple?

One thing is sure: none of the visual constructions dreamed up so far have been very coherent, and each raises almost more questions than it answers. For instance, in the Four Food Groups model, why does Dairy appear to account for a full one-quarter of the diet, seemingly equivalent to the entire universe of fruits and vegetables?  The answer to that may perhaps be found in the fact that the USDA has a duel mandate—to promote agriculture and to promote public health—and the dairy industry has some very skilled lobbyists when it comes to “promoting” the purported health benefits of milk.

And the Pyramid had an oddly counter-intuitive structure, in which the “good” stuff like grains, fruits, and vegetables were grouped at the (big, wide) bottom of the triangle, while the “bad” things one was to “limit” one’s intake of (like sweets and fats) were up at the tiny tippy-top.  Talk about over-thinking something: you can picture the creative types at the USDA coming up with that one, and disregarding the fact that the “top” of anything is almost always superior (“You’re the top/You’re the Coliseum,” sang Cole Porter).

Climbing the pyramid...wrong by wrong

Then there is just the utter failure of the Pyramid to teach us much of anything worth knowing.  We were told to gorge on those bottom-dwellers—the grains and cereals.  As my former shrink liked to say, “And how’s that workin’ for ya?”  Since 20 years of Pyramid eating have brought our collective national weight gain to an all-time high, I think we’d have to respond at this point: Not so well.  Only now are we figuring out that too many carbs, like too much of anything, are bad for your health and your waistline.

Enter the new, improved USDA Healthy Eating paradigm: the Food Circle, or Plate, soon to be unveiled by the USDA.  The Agency is currently coyly leaking details about the plan, hoping to drum up interest from a nutrition-news-numbed public.  What they’ll spill so far: The plate’s first distinguishing characteristic is that one-half of it should be filled with fruits and vegetables.  So at least fruits and veggies have moved up in the world, from one-quarter of the diet in the 1950s, to one-half now.

That is all well, good—and improbable.  When was the last time you saw a plate of food from any kind of American food outlet—fast food, middle-American cuisine (the Applebee’s/Olive Garden ilk), or even haute cuisine—that was half vegetable matter?  The word “salad” is so cavalierly applied these days that a recent study found that “healthy eaters” (aka dieters) ended up consuming more calories than carefree burger-guzzlers because they consciously ordered entrees with healthy-sounding names.  The problem: items like the Tortilla-Bowl Salad or the Caesar with Chicken often ended up being more caloric than the decadent-sounding pastas and red-meat choices.

Not to sound defeatist, but I don’t think a square, triangle, or circle is going to solve our health and obesity conundrums. Perhaps that’s because “eating right” is both too simple and too complicated to be boiled down to a mathematical formula.  It’s simple like this: foods that grow in the earth are good for you, as are foods bought fresh (not packaged in boxes and plastic bags to be popped into the microwave) and then cooked with a modicum of good sense and reasonable amounts of oil.  It’s complicated like this: hardly anyone even knows how to cook anymore (or is willing to devote the time and effort to it), and our entire culture is now geared to convenience and speed when it comes to eating.  It certainly doesn’t help that we have a gang-busters food industry, both in grocery stores in restaurant chains, working nonstop to increase our consumption of those “bad” goodies at the tip of the triangle.

My advice: in honor of the new USDA Plate, make a vow to spend an entire week eating only fresh and homemade foods, with a particular eye towards fruits and vegetables (summer makes that easy).  Weigh yourself before and after the week.  See what happens.  (Oh, and get out there and move your body--but that's another story...)  Let me know how it goes!