Let's make sense of the new Food Pyramid

The new food pyramid has dropped — and with it, a fair amount of confusion. Without getting into the reeds too much, here are my big takeaways:

1. Prioritizing protein and “healthy” fats is always a good thing! Protein recs have gone from .8g per kg to 1.2-1.6kg, so if you weigh 150 lbs, you should eat 81-108g protein daily. (I still find that a bit low BUT a big improvement!). Women especially are notoriously low in protein intake, especially as teenagers and in menopause.

2. Limiting UPF’s (ultra processed foods), refined carbs, added sugar, and sugar sweetened beverages is a home run. But we still need to make whole, unprocessed foods more available. Until alternative, HEALTHIER foods become available that are affordable for families, it will be hard to really “limit” ultra processed foods unfortunately.

3. Reducing alcohol for “better health” is great advice, but I found it a bit vague. Guidelines are easier for people to follow. Just like me telling someone to “move more”, it doesn’t give them much concrete information to work with!

4. I found too much emphasis on red meat and dairy. I am okay with some saturated fat (I have no beef with butter), but I recommend cooking with EVOO and avocado oil, not beef tallow. We should be upping our use of monosaturated fats, which come from plant sources like nuts, seeds, avocados, and olives.

5. I like the 5 servings of fruits and veggies (though TBH I tell people to eat 6-8). I also preferred the My Plate visual where 1/2 the plate is plants — the message is impossible to miss! It even worked with kids as young as kindergarten age.

6. Revamping school lunch programs will be amazing — to me, feeding our kids healthy meals at school is the biggest priority for the Health and Human Services. It could not get any worse! No thanks to cereal companies like General Foods and Kellogg’s who strive for profit and can’t be bothered to take food dyes out of their products.