Weight Loss News and Current Events - Harvard's New Food Pyramid

Harvard University School of Public Health has revised the good old food pyramid in a much more sensible presentation, incorporating new data from long-term studies. They call it The Healthy Eating Pyramid, and have a free site explaining it.

The updated pyramid, based on data from the Nurses' Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study, has four components that differ from the US Department of Agriculture's 2005 recommendations. Exercise and weight control are at the base of the pyramid to stress their importance, vitamin D is added in a bottle off to the side reflecting deficiencies many people have, dairy is limited to two servings a day because more doesn't help, and sugar-sweetened beverages such as sodas are added to the pyramid's tip, in the "use sparingly" category that also includes red meat, salt, and refined grains, the site says.

Read about it here (http://www.boston.com/news/health/blog/2008/05/harvards_new_fo.html).



Mel

My first thought was "That's so awesome!"

Did I actually just get excited about the food pyramid? :lol:

It's very sensible. And I love how they incorporate exercise into the equation. Into the BASE of the equation at that!

I also like how the bottom of the pyramid includes the oils, but it's a smaller bar, so while it shows the importance of having enough healthy oils, at the same time it points out that we don't need to overdo it.

Before... the oils were up in the "use sparingly" area lumped in with things like sugar. Not that we should drink a bottle of olive oil a day, but that healthy oils are so essential! They're more important than just "use sparingly & eat less candy bars, too".

I notice they changed the catch all "rice & grains" to the much healthier whole grains. With white breads & pastas being pushed up to the use sparingly area.

I'm very excited to see this pyramid based on some long-term research... it's sad that earlier versions seemed to have corporate agendas...

Thank you! A lot of great information there!!!

I like that they say our diets should be more plant based :)

Ohhhhhh I soooooo can't wait to show this to DH. last night we had "discussion". He still thinks "The basic 4 Food Groups" way of eating is the way to go. Needless to say, he has a difficult time with change of any kind!!

I just read all about this in Eat, Drink and Be Healthy by Walter Willet, M.D. from the Harvard School of Public Health. I loved the book. It helped demystify the studies that have been done and explains the differences between the long term quality studies and the one's that hit the headlines before getting enough back up. Now, I'm reading Eat, Drink and Weigh Less. The recipe's look wonderful. It is so nice to find out I can live and eat healthy w/o freaking out about foods.

This is fantastic! It makes SENSE! :) Way to go Harvard!:bravo:

Interesting thing is it almost exactly reflects the plan I decided on for myself after perusing posts on 3FC (and I've never been to Harvard :lol: ). Goes to show you that the chickies here are ahead of even some of the most educated peeps in the country when it comes to nutritional health. :carrot:

This is very interesting - I've been wondering when a new pyramid would come out!

Here's the last updated USDA pyramid.

http://www.mypyramid.gov/

The new Pyramid makes my brain explode. Does anyone know what % of our calories are supposed to come from each group?