patrick.net

All thanks to the Food Pyramid, suggesting people eat all that sugar and grains. 12 servings of breads and cereals, what exactly did they think would happen? That people would be so malnourished from a diet centered around toxins and carbohydrates, would wind up with people needing so much healthcare that the gov could end up forcing everyone to buy private health insurance from evil corporations?

Damn - you're like a broken record, bashing the food pyramid. Added sugar was on the top of the food pyramid with oils. Both were something to use sparingly. The fact that people ate a ton of both has nothing to do with the food pyramid.
Despite the hype, rice, potatoes, and bread are not the same as sugar. Billions of thin healthy people eat what basically conforms to the food pyramid with no ill effect.

False

I can see baskin-robbins from my bathtub...

The article says; "More than half of workers (55 percent) categorize themselves as overweight."
Well, 70% of Americans ARE overweight, so I would guess they are correct.

This resembles many people in my profession:

APOCALYPSEFUCKisShostikovitch says

CHOP OFF YOUR DICKS IF YOU CAN SEE THEM AND JUMP OFF THE FUCKING ROOF!

You must have read this thread:
/?p=1241590

Fucking Fat People. They are starting to accelerate the rotation of the Earth. Increasing tornadoes and hurricanes are all their fat fucking fault.

I say put a cork in their asses, and when the fart gas reaches critical mass, ignite them and watch them all flame off the face of the planet.

errc says

All thanks to the Food Pyramid, suggesting people eat all that sugar and grains. 12 servings of breads and cereals, what exactly did they think would happen? That people would be so malnourished from a diet centered around toxins and carbohydrates, would wind up with people needing so much healthcare that the gov could end up forcing everyone to buy private health insurance from evil corporations?

What about calorie consumption vs. expenditure?

turtledove says

errc says

All thanks to the Food Pyramid, suggesting people eat all that sugar and grains. 12 servings of breads and cereals, what exactly did they think would happen? That people would be so malnourished from a diet centered around toxins and carbohydrates, would wind up with people needing so much healthcare that the gov could end up forcing everyone to buy private health insurance from evil corporations?

What about calorie consumption vs. expenditure?

That's by far the most imprortant variable for weight loss/gain/maintenance.

turtledove says

errc says

All thanks to the Food Pyramid, suggesting people eat all that sugar and grains. 12 servings of breads and cereals, what exactly did they think would happen? That people would be so malnourished from a diet centered around toxins and carbohydrates, would wind up with people needing so much healthcare that the gov could end up forcing everyone to buy private health insurance from evil corporations?

What about calorie consumption vs. expenditure?

Oh dear. Not that old hat again

errc says

All thanks to the Food Pyramid, suggesting people eat all that sugar and grains. 12 servings of breads and cereals, what exactly did they think would happen? That people would be so malnourished from a diet centered around toxins and carbohydrates, would wind up with people needing so much healthcare that the gov could end up forcing everyone to buy private health insurance from evil corporations?

WHAT THE FUCK, MAN? You keep bringing that up over and over and over, and I've told you over and over and over that THE FOOD PYRAMID DOESN'T EXIST ANYMORE. The USDA does not recommend that anyone eat sugar. In fact they explicitly recommend AGAINST it.

So are you stupid or are you a liar?

turtledove says

What about calorie consumption vs. expenditure?

You're wasting your time arguing with errc. He thinks eating 2 pounds of bacon is the best thing you can do for your body.

I see some of you are grossly malinformed.

Calories in, calories out, has been disproven time and time again.

Its a quality of calorie issue, not a quantity issue.

More importantly, people don't eat calories. Calories are not a consumable. calories, more importantly, kilocalories, are a unit of measurement.

As far as food goes, there are three components that comprise food.

Protein
Fat
Carbohydrates

Many people avoid eating fats, because they are confused in thinking that the fat you eat goes from your mouth straight to your midsection as stored energy. This is false.

Fat storage is driven by hormones, primarily, insulin. The reason why most people are fat is because they have eaten their way to insulin resistance. Insulin resistance is brought about by habitual consumption of carbohydrates, more importantly simple carbs like starches and sugars and grains. In order to reverse this process, one must simply remove most all of the simple carbohydrates from their diet.

If you wanted to lose weight, you could eat 3000 calories a day so long as they are healthful calories and contain no simple carbohydrates and a limited amount of healthful, complex carbs

If you wanted to gain weight, you could eat 1500 calories a day so long as they are shitty calories from candy bars, sodas, cereals and even fruits.

Homeboy says

errc says

All thanks to the Food Pyramid, suggesting people eat all that sugar and grains. 12 servings of breads and cereals, what exactly did they think would happen? That people would be so malnourished from a diet centered around toxins and carbohydrates, would wind up with people needing so much healthcare that the gov could end up forcing everyone to buy private health insurance from evil corporations?

WHAT THE FUCK, MAN? You keep bringing that up over and over and over, and I've told you over and over and over that THE FOOD PYRAMID DOESN'T EXIST ANYMORE. The USDA does not recommend that anyone eat sugar. In fact they explicitly recommend AGAINST it.

So are you stupid or are you a liar?

Why did they discontinue the food pyramid, and replace it with the similare Choose MyPlate?

Where was the memo they sent out to the millions of people that the government instructed to eat a food pyramid consistent diet for decades, telling them, oops, we were wrong. That diet (SAD) will make you fat and sick?

And piss off with calling me stupid or a liar. You are the dishonest little coward that always runs off once you're cornered by the facts, into having admit you are dishonest/wrong.

I'm attempting to inform the misinformed.

Some people are smart enough to be open to new information. some people would love to re-take ownership over their own bodies and learn what a healthful diet looks like.

Hell, some of us are even responsible for feeding our kids so we damned well better be informed as to what it is we are doing when we are choosing their nutrients for them.

If only history could show a large sample of people... who had their caloric consumption minimized and their caloric expenditures maximized... Only then, might we know for sure.

errc says

Why did they discontinue the food pyramid, and replace it with the similare Choose MyPlate?

Because they realized that eating more of the grain group than any other group was not good advice.

So back to the question: Why do you continue on this forum to claim that the Food Pyramid is still the recommendation of the USDA, when you know it is not?

errc says

Where was the memo they sent out to the millions of people that the government instructed to eat a food pyramid consistent diet for decades, telling them, oops, we were wrong.

Awww... you didn't get an apology letter from Uncle Sam? You gonna cry now?

Dear errc:

Sorry that we made recommendations in the 1980s that were based on the available scientific evidence, and that we changed those recommendations later based on additional evidence that came to light. We sincerely hope you didn't get your widdle feewings hurt.

Love,

USDA

turtledove says

If only history could show a large sample of people... who had their caloric consumption minimized and their caloric expenditures maximized... Only then, might we know for sure.

I would think as long as caloric expenditures > caloric consumption over a period of time you would lose weight.

errc says

And piss off with calling me stupid or a liar.

Let's look at the facts:

1. The USDA discontinued the use of the Food Pyramid.

2. You are aware of fact number 1.

3. You still continue to claim that the Food Pyramid is in use.

Therefore, you are either lying, or you are stupid. What is the third option? Unless someone hijacked your screen name, I can't think of one.

Your original comment was clear enough, and plenty of famines elsewhere have shown the same. Calories are obviously a factor driving whether people gain or lose weight.

I think errc was trying to say that calories are not the only factor, and within a daily range of 1,500 - 3,000 the precise number isn't the primary factor.

If you consume less than 1,500 calories/day, you will lose weight and eventually starve. If you are consuming more calories than you can burn via exercise, you will gain weight and become fat. In between those two extremes, other factors matter, e.g. empty processed calories tend to make people fat because they don't gain energy to exercise. Michael Phelps consumed reportedly 10,000 calories/day, five times the recommended normal number of calories, but he was careful to match his consumption to his exercise level, and aside from a weakness for pancakes he was probably careful about where he got those calories; his combination of diet and exercise made him muscular, not fat.

BTW, when reducing calories to try to lose weight, caffeine can make a huge difference. Without caffeine or forced labor, the body responds to lower caloric intake by slowing down, so weight loss takes longer; it's probably an evolved defense to ride out famines.

In America, a handy heuristic to evaluate the healthfulness of food is to check whether it is subsidized. The most unhealthy foods tend to be the most heavily subsidized, which is why we see an unprecedented anomaly: the poorest people tend also to be the fattest. Personally my objection to the old Food Pyramid and the new Choose MyPlate is that they both call dairy essential, when in fact millions of people can't even digest it, and it hasn't even existed long enough to become essential. It's driven by industry lobbying, not health; they might as well have created a corn syrup group and called that essential.

turtledove @ 29,
I see you went blank. Now you know how I feel 24/7.
Two steps in my shoes is enough for anybody. rofl

HEY YOU says

Now you know how I feel 24/7.

Maybe you should seek help for that. Most people experience a range of feelings throughout the day and the week. Perhaps there might be something wrong with your diet.

No worries! I removed it. Curious said that my initial point was clear, so I didn't want to beat a dead horse :)

turtledove says

If only history could show a large sample of people... who had their caloric consumption minimized and their caloric expenditures maximized... Only then, might we know for sure.

Why bother with history when we can use science.

If the lone challenge was to have caloric expenditure exceed caloric consumption, do you really think that 70% of americans would be overweight?

Have you never attempted to eat less food, while exercising more, only to wonder WHY ISN'T THIS WORKING?

Occams Razor.

Homeboy says

Sorry that we made recommendations in the 1980s that were based on the available scientific evidence, and that we changed those recommendations later based on additional evidence that came to light.

Nope, it was politics not science.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/science/09tier.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
The USDA is a heavily politicized Department, currently headed by Monsanto/Ethanol flack Tom Vilsack. The former governor of Iowa, Vilsack doesn't give a shit what you eat as long as it is Geneticaly Modified and chock full of HFCS.
He is another Obama appointed corporate lackey:
"Opposition to the nomination came from the Organic Consumers Association, which outlined in a November 2008 report several reasons why it believed Vilsack would be a poor choice for the position, particularly as energy and environmental reforms were a key point of the Obama campaign.
Among those reasons the report cites: Vilsack has repeatedly demonstrated a preference for large industrial farms and genetically modified crops;[20] as Iowa state governor, he originated the seed pre-emption bill in 2005, effectively blocking local communities from regulating where genetically engineered crops would be grown; additionally, Vilsack was the founder and former chair of the Governor's Biotechnology Partnership, and was named Governor of the Year by the Biotechnology Industry Organization, an industry lobbying group."

"In the first of this three-part series, Jacques Peretti traces those responsible for revolutionising our eating habits, to find out how decisions made in America 40 years ago influence the way we eat now.
Peretti travels to America to investigate the story of high-fructose corn syrup. The sweetener was championed in the US in the 1970s by Richard Nixon's agriculture secretary Earl Butz to make use of the excess corn grown by farmers. Cheaper and sweeter than sugar, it soon found its way into almost all processed foods and soft drinks. HFCS is not only sweeter than sugar, it also interferes with leptin, the hormone that controls appetite, so once you start eating or drinking it, you don't know when to stop."
The Men Who Made Us Fat
BBC
http://www.youtube.com/embed/E6nGlLUBkOQ

Don't do it Robert Sproul. Nobody wants to be bothered with the truth

Of course.
Probably 90% of females feel overweight, so any workplace that has females will report a high % of those who believe they're overweight.

Here's the original food pyramid:

Note that added sugars, which includes HFCS is at the top with the guidance to use sparingly. You cannot blame a high sugar consumption on this pyramid. It's a load of crap. Here is a pamphlet that was published with the pyramid: http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/publications/mypyramid/originalfoodguidepyramids/fgp/fgppamphlet.pdf.

The guide explains the difference between a potato, which is in the vegetable group and french fries, which are mostly fat and should be used sparingly. But we all know that the average Joe eats a crap-load of fries and no plain baked potatoes. It also states that you should limit salt.

So the food pyramid said to limit Salt, Oil, and Sugar, which are the main-stays of processed food. But that is about the opposite of what people have done in the last 20 years.

The guide and pyramid are an unfortunate compromise between nutritional information and the desires of various food industry lobbies. This leads to intentionally confusing recommendations, like keep fat to less than 30 percent of calories, and that cake should be counted in the grains category. Cake should be listed in the oil and sugar category, period.

edited to fix formatting issues

Robert Sproul says

Nope, it was politics not science.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/science/09tier.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Sorry, what is that article supposed to prove? It shows that the government accepted the belief of some scientists who said fat is the cause of heart disease. There didn't turn out to be enough evidence for that, so the Food Pyramid was scrapped in favor of a recommended diet that is more balanced and does not favor carbohydrates. The current scientific consensus is that PROCESSED foods should be avoided, e.g. refined sugar, refined grains, heavily salted foods, preservatives, etc.

This meme that anything goes so long as it's not carbohydrates is complete bullshit, and even your article admits it isn't proven:

Mr. Taubes argues that the low-fat recommendations, besides being unjustified, may well have harmed Americans by encouraging them to switch to carbohydrates, which he believes cause obesity and disease. He acknowledges that that hypothesis is unproved, and that the low-carb diet fad could turn out to be another mistaken cascade.

A little common sense would do people so much more good than extremist dogma. Don't eat fast food. Eat fresh vegetables and fruit. Don't eat processed sugar or processed grains. Taking simple steps such as these would benefit people far more than any fad diet. This is not a government conspiracy to make people fat; it's simply a matter of people not taking the advice that is given.

Robert Sproul says

"Opposition to the nomination came from the Organic Consumers Association, which outlined in a November 2008 report several reasons why it believed Vilsack would be a poor choice for the position, particularly as energy and environmental reforms were a key point of the Obama campaign.

Total non-sequitur. GMOs are a completely different issue than what we have been discussing. And that's the big gripe I have with the organics industry. There's no science there. They happily conflate issues and confuse the topic without any regard to the truth, so long as they can make people believe they have to pay more for "organic" food. There is no evidence whatsoever that "organic" food is in any way better for people than ordinary food. Despite the bogus "studies" the organics industry touts as "proof" of GMO harm, there in fact is not a single shred of evidence that GMO food has ever harmed a single human being, EVER. All their so called evidence has been debunked, and in most cases has been shown to be downright fraudulent.

Politics, indeed.

YesYNot says

the opposite of what people have done in the last 20 years

Thanks to a concerted effort to overcome even this marginally useful guideline with mass marketing.
Processed "food" is created to be seductive and addictive, and marketed by the most effective, manipulative, mechanisms ever devised.
And then they deliberately overcame peoples natural, common sense, portion control with their "super size" marketing schemes, coaxing people into eating even more of their toxic concoctions.

YesYNot says

So the food pyramid said to limit Salt, Oil, and Sugar, which are the main-stays of processed food. But that is about the opposite of what people have done in the last 20 years.

The guide and pyramid are an unfortunate compromise between nutritional information and the desires of various food industry lobbies. This leads to intentionally confusing recommendations, like keep fat to less than 30 percent of calories, and that cake should be counted in the grains category. Cake should be listed in the oil and sugar category, period.

The My Plate Icon does no better.

The price of healthful vegetables and raw unprocessed foods is becoming a luxury and a premium, while our food distribution is consolidating more and more to a mass production assembly line of saturated sweetened fat, loaded with chemical for each to alter thickness, longevity, color, texture and dried and crammed into a bag, canned, frozen or dispensed from a machine.

Then we have people in Washington who like to rock the vote, rattling on about eating your veggies, while not say one single damn word about the crap and the additives that is in 85% of the food we eat. There's just to much money to make them stop, feeding people that poison.

Homeboy says

there in fact is not a single shred of evidence that GMO food has ever harmed a single human being,

I was interested in what risk guru Nassim Taleb recently said about GMO's:

"Genetically Modified Organisms, GMOs fall squarely under the Precautionary Principal not because of the harm to the consumer but because of their systemic risk on the system.

Top-down modifications to the system (through GMOs) are categorically and statistically different from bottom up ones (regular farming, progressive tinkering with crops, etc.) There is no comparison between the tinkering of selective breeding and the top-down engineering of arbitrarily taking a gene from an organism and putting it into another. Saying that such a product is natural misses the statistical process by which things become ”natural”.

What people miss is that the modification of crops impacts everyone and exports the error from the local to the global. I do not wish to pay—or have my descendants pay—for errors by executives of Monsanto. We should exert the precautionary principle there—our non-naive version—simply because we would only discover errors after considerable and irreversible environmental damage."

Captain,
I disagree with the price of raw unprocessed foods. If all you eat are veggies, grains, and legumes, your shopping bill will be quite low. If you buy pre-packaged stuff marketed as health food, then hold onto your wallet.

Homeboy says

And that's the big gripe I have with the organics industry

That is your gripe.
MY gripe with the National Organic Standards Board is that the very same political tool that I mentioned already, Tom Vilsack, packs the board with industry hacks from Big Ag and Big Food. Their goal is to dilute standards and make "organic" a meaningless marketing gimmick.