USDA Announces "My Plate," But Does It Help If The Farm Bill Isn’t Next?

Under much awaited hype (OK, maybe only among nutritionists and industry types) the USDA announced their new version of the nearly 20 year old food pyramid in early June. And the BIG news is… it’s no longer a pyramid! “My Plate,” a simple, intuitive image, has now replaced the stacked pyramid and is split into several easy to grasp sections. The four sections include fruits, vegetables, grains, and protein, with dairy accounted for on the side.

So is this better than the food pyramid? I’d personally say yes. There is still a lot of basic information missing and I’d like to debate the section sizes, but for one, they’ve at least gone a long way by removing “sweets” and have made it a lot easier for kids to understand the basics of healthy eating.  While an updated image is certainly not going to improve the obesity epidemic our nation is currently facing, it’s at least a step in the right direction to simpify nutrition communication to the public.

While the USDA and Michelle Obama's continued obesity efforts through the “Let’s Move Campaign” should be applauded, one cannot help but notice the contradiction between what the government is recommending we eat (i.e., “My Plate") and what the government is doing to actually make that feasible. I came across a post by Roger Dorien of “Kitchen Gardeners,” who I believe has captured this issue incredibly well via two comparative images (see below).

Roger shares the following on his site (http://kitchengardeners.org/):
“I was really inspired by the diversity and nutritiousness of the crops planted in the White House kitchen garden this spring and thought it would be eye-opening - not to mention jaw-dropping - to see what the White House garden would look like if it were planted to reflect the relative importance of the crops that our taxdollars are actually supporting.”

Thus enters the debate over the Farm Bill (I won’t bore you with the details just yet) and a clear contradiction – while the government might recommend approximately 50% of our diet come from fruits and vegetables, if we look at what crops the government supports via subsidies our “Plates” in actuality are a combination of soybeans, corn, wheat and rice.  It’s no surprise then that the supermarket shelves lowest cost products are those that are full of these ingredients.  So who can really blame a poverty level family if they choose to fill their cart with processed foods (e.g., sugary cereals, chips, cookies and soda, etc.) so they have enough to eat all week, rather than choose the much pricier fruits and vegetables? It’s also not a secret that a diet high in these types of processed foods is much more likely to lead to weight gain compared to consumption of fresh produce.  

That’s the Clean Health Project’s opinion, and we encourage you to be your own judge.

Posted in: Health Science / News