We should all eat more orange! And I need to cut back a bit on my purple.
The new official USDA Food Guide Pyramid is a pretty-colored "adaptable" diagram that uses colors to represent food groups and approximate slices of a triangle to represent the amount that should be eaten. (Plus the torso-less person walking up the stairs on the side to represent the need for exercise.)
Positives: Works for the illiterate, because there are no labels to speak of. Also can be customized for personal use.
Negatives: No one knows the difference between blue and red unless they bother to look it up. And many people, after making a customized recommendation, don't know exactly how many bowls of Wheaties 6 ounces of grains is.
I wonder how the health and fitness instructors are supposed to test kids on this in their classrooms? It was so much easier when you knew that it was 2-4 servings of Fruits and 3-5 of Vegetables. Now Tommy needs 1.5 cups of Fruits, while Sally needs 2, and Billy is completely perplexed as how to fit a carrot stick into a cup in the first place. Posts: 973 | Registered: Apr 2005
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I will cast my vote for "stupid" regarding this redesign. Why not just reuse the pyramid and switch the groups where necessary? Oh well, I can't even remember what the last pyramid recommended for servings of each food group. I just try to balance everything out.
Posts: 1813 | Registered: Apr 2001
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