Food Pyramid: How the USDA Conspired with Food Manufacturers to Boost Their Sales
Search results show site after site claiming the original food guide pyramid was released in 1992 and almost nothing about the 1950s version I was trying to find information on. I never could locate an image of the original 1956 USDA “Basic Four Food Groups” pyramid.
Simply search for information about the USDA Food Guide Pyramid. I spent HOURS and have yet to find the original government released Food Guide Pyramid created in the 1950s that I remember from when I was in school.
1992 food guide pyramid
Schools taught the pyramid as health science, but where it came from, who decided what was on it, and who REALLY benefited from it is an interesting and important story that few understand.
Finding the real truth about it in a search engine is VERY difficult. Another search you can use for testing is “Dietary Guidelines”. See what results you get.
This post on the 1992 version of the Food Pyramid includes this excerpt about how the USDA conspired with food manufactures to boost their sales while totally disregarding your health:
Luise Light, the architect of the original version was a nutritional expert who made her recommendations based on valid food science in the 1980′s. But certain members of the food lobby rejected her prescription for small servings of their products so they strong armed the USDA, urging them to bury her work. By 1992, they returned her Food Pyramid to her unrecognizable.
She writes in A Fatally Flawed Food Guide, “When our version of the Food Guide came back to us revised, we were shocked to find that it was vastly different from the one we had developed. As I later discovered, the wholesale changes made to the guide by the Office of the Secretary of Agriculture were calculated to win the acceptance of the food industry…“it appears our nutritional needs are being sold to the highest bidder … again!“
I disagree with FoodForeThought‘s conclusion that eating by the food pyramid is why people are overweight today. I lay that at the feet of food that does not contain the nutrients we need and the enormous amount of things we are ingesting that are NOT FOOD including chemicals, genetically modified organisms and especially high fructose corn syrup that is in almost every product on the shelf!
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Hey Gail thanks for this awesome information you have here. I really love it
I have always recommended purchasing poultry and egg from my regional poultry village. I started this 4 years ago and it was the best choice i had ever created. The beef preferences way better and the egg are so delightful. I will never go back to purchasing poultry at a regional food market.
Thatknowledge would love you to read ..Lemon
We are to the point that people need to really think about who is trustworthy and who is not.
Twitter: GrowMap
December 10, 2012 at 5:54 am
Hi Niki,
What will eventually happen is people will either believe the media and educational system conditioning or they will believe those of us who have spent years figuring things out. If publicly traded corporations are involved that are controlled by those who have clearly shared their intentions they can’t be trusted.
It actually got simpler once I realized that because as soon as I see they are publicly traded I know they are probably not trustworthy. So far I have only found ONE that might be ok.
We need to be seeking out independent ethical businesses and sources that we CAN trust.
Thanks for all the great information, the food pyramid is especially interesting.
people wouldn’t know what healthy was if it bit them in the ….
Thanks for the post. I found that if I eat healthy, get at least some exercise I feel so much better. I also started using maqui berry supplements they have really helped me.
Parker would love you to read ..Why is the Maqui berry call the NEW super fruit?
Very informative , its strange the ones who need to protect the public health conspire to make it worse. Thanks for the effort.
Dave Lawson would love you to read ..Redx
Twitter: fitnessdegree
November 21, 2012 at 11:17 pm
The higher the pyramid the more delicious taste of the foods but more unhealthy for body they become
erwin would love you to read ..Sole Treadmills
Great explanation on Food Pyramid. Thanks for sharing information about Food Pyramid. Definitely your post provides a great and useful resource every reader must read this post on health insurance.
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Um, genetically modified organisms ARE food. They are organisms nature could have made but didn’t. Most are designed to be virtually indestructible, thus messing up the ecosystem, but they are still organisms in the exact same way as ones that evolved.
Fructose syrup is also a valid ‘food’ – it is made solely from water and sugars, which are nutrients. There is nothing inorganic in it. Say what you like about its health effects, but it IS food.
If people followed even skewed dietary advice they’d be all right. Not the best they can be, but all right. Obesity is prevalent because of two main reasons: the excessive levels of fat in processed foods, and people eating food that they know is fatty because they find it irresistable, not the incorrectness of the food pyramid.
Twitter: GrowMap
November 4, 2012 at 9:56 am
Hello Emily,
You are welcome to your opinion that nature made itself and men are as wise as God – or even to believe there is no God – but that does not give people who want to eat man-made whatever to control what others like me choose to eat.
People are NOT all right. They are in horrendous physical condition because they believe whatever they have been conditioned to believe and are destroying our health and the entire planet in the process.
The food pyramid is propaganda. The concept that low-fat = healthy is more propaganda. All you have to do to prove that is go talk to healthy people who are over 70 and ask them what they ate all their lives and what medicines they take.
People who grew their own food and ate diets that included massive amounts of whole eggs and fats are still alive at 90+ and if they stayed away from taking medication they will stay that way.
Those who bought into the nonsense that the food God created and natural fats are bad for you or who are any medications will rapidly decline. I challenge you to find healthy people who take synthetic substances on a regular basis and who do not eat whole, natural foods. If you ever find any, let me know.
Money makes this screwed up world go around. Find out who benefits financially and who owns the media and you will find the truth. As for HFCS, you may find these enlightening:
Princeton University: A sweet problem: Princeton researchers find that high-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain
5 Reasons High Fructose Corn Syrup Will Kill You
P.P.S. There are two kinds of people in the world, and they are NOT going to be able to convert each other. One kind thinks for themselves and examines all available evidence. The other believes what they have been conditioned to believe, but is positive they are not conditioned. Therefore, we may as well agree to disagree because there is no way to bridge the gap between the thinking and the conditioned unless the conditioned chooses to unplug from what keeps them believing whatever they are told.
GrowMap would love you to read ..Facebook Users Outraged Over New Extortion Model
Yes, Your concept is really informative. The excessive levels of fat is really bad for the better healthy life and also to know about fast food. In my concept please you will write about more. Thanks, keep it up……………
I don’t think there is anything wrong with Food Pyramids. Obesity problem has nothing to do with it. The main reason is the huge increase of fast food consumption. One should first compare the amount of fast food restaurants back in 90s to now.
I agree with you Mert. Also most of these fast foods are genetically Modified foods.
Self-Discipline still the best to have, to be healthy as you can be.
Just want to remind people that the new dietary guidelines from the USDA is represented by a plate model called MyPlate. I do agree that there is a lot of politics behind the guidelines.
If you don’t like the USDA’s dietary guidelines you can always turn to other healthy alternatives. Harvard School of Public Health has a bunch of well researched alternatives.
Mark would love you to read ..Majority of adults obese in 39 states…and rising
Twitter: GrowMap
October 28, 2012 at 4:38 pm
Hi Mark,
We are to the point that people need to really think about who is trustworthy and who is not. Much of the research is paid for by corporations and only the research that agrees with what they want it to find gets published. Researchers who try to publish the actual results are frequently ostracized and have difficulty ever getting grants or work again. That should tell people who have common sense that they should stop listening to so-called experts and apply some actual common sense to what they choose to eat.
Twitter: CrescentSkies
October 24, 2012 at 1:48 pm
The food pyramid makes a very dangerous assumption, it assumes that people are eating real food. Not fast food, not cake instead of grains, not white bread instead of wheat bread, etc.
Most Americans are guilty of breaking this so by all likelihoods we may never again know if the food pyramid is accurate or not!
CrescentSkies would love you to read ..Medical Herbs and Alternative Medicine
Wow, super post! In my opinion, it is all the same what we eat, the point is the quantity. Our problem is that we don’t know our limits.
Ilan would love you to read ..LASIK and Lifestyle Changes
I think the number 1 issue is we have been conditioned to eat more than we need. Portion sizes in the homes and when eating out are far arger than what we need. This results in a psychological commitment to how much food we should eat at one sitting. If we could simply cut back the portion sizes we would be much better off.
This is a Great post.. I never Knew my bro is into the health Niche. Nice one
kingsley would love you to read ..Best Way to Lose Stomach Fat in Two Weeks
I never see this info about food guide pyramid before
But, your review gives me a new knowledge about diet. I’ll keep this in mind for my weight loss programs 
This food pyramid is definitely detrimental. Our health is something that we must cherish. However, there are certain individuals who abuse us personally. In order to boost sales some people are actually trying to wreck our health. To think that the health-care system is not working and while this is happening we follow a pyramid that is leading to further illnesses is certainly ridiculous. Thanks for this info anyways.
Something that we really need to look into for the future. Great Post
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Thanks for posting such a great information as well as general awareness on Human health. I think this pyramid is not as working with which our people can understand.
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