Full Circle: The Futility of the Perfect Health Diet

Guest post by Liz of Mostly Meat Is What I Eat.

The USDA Food Pyramid / MyPlate:

 We all know and loath these, the face of evil grain-pushing bureaucrats feeding the growing obesity/diabetes epidemics, high in insulin-stimulating carbs and low in satiating fats.

A highly doubt anyone reading this blog will be defending these things. There are many many things I can say about what's wrong with the USDA food guidelines, and many people have explained this better than I ever could. Suffice it to say if you're reading this kind of blog then you've got a good idea of what's wronf with the USDA recommendations.

This really summarises what I think about the food pyramid:

Anyway, some numbers:

• 6-11 servings grains @ 1 oz (or 1/2cup cooked rice) per serving = 6-11 oz
• 3-5 servings vegtables @ 1 cup raw leafy or 1/2 cup other per serving = 3-5 cups leafy, 1.5-2.5 cups other
• 2-4 fruit @ 1 medium (eg apple) = 2-4 medium fruits
• 2-3 dairy @ 1 cup milk or 2 oz cheese = 2-3 cups dairy
• 2-3 servings meat @ 3 oz cooked per servings = 6-9 oz cooked per day = 8-12 oz raw estimated
• 
  

Comparing for a age 19-30 male the pyramid and plate compare like this:

...	Pyramid	Plate
Meat	6-9 oz (cooked) ~8-12 oz (raw)	6.5 oz (cooked) ~8 2/3 (raw)
Veg	4 cups	3 cups
Fruit	1.5 cups	2 cups
Grains	9 oz	8 oz
Dairy	2-3 cups	3 cups
Fat/Sugar	73g in total	7 tsp ?added?

2000kcal: 6oz grains, 2.5c veg, 2c fruit, 3c milk, 5.5oz meat.   http://www.choosemyplate.gov/food-groups/downloads/MiniPoster.pdf

In general all the amounts have been reduced due to decreasing calorie allowances in an attempt to curb obesity, while dairy and fruit has increased slightly.



Baby Steps:

When paleo was first born is was still low fat (the idea that grain-fed and wild animals are lower in fat than grain-fed animals, failing to realise that man selectively hunted the fattest prey they could find (link), and wiped out all the super-fat mega-fauna), but removed high carb grains, legumes, and starchy tubers. You ate meat, lots of fruit and vegetables (sometimes fruit was limited a bit), nuts/seeds, and limited added fats amd salts. Lots of fish was recommended to balance against the omega-6 fatty acids in all nuts/seeds. It worked, people got very healthy as it was low in carbs, high in fat (though maybe not an ideal mix of fats) and protein.

A major problem with low fat paleo is what's sometimes called the 'faileo' diet, as a diet low in carbs AND fat must either be very low calorie or very high protein, both of which cause problems. Too low calories can cause starvation and muscle wasting, too high protein can cause toxicity aka rabbit starvation.




Higher Meat/Fat Paleo:
Paleo soon learnt that fat was fine, and that animal fats were more ideal than nuts/seeds. Fruit was emphasised as being more fattening than vegetables and to be limited.

This is the updated version of Mark Sission's food pyramid, the old one is the similarly coloured one in the low-fat paleo section. Notice how meat is emphasised over vegetables, fruit is put much higher, and that healthy fats are given a place about half way up.

Soon pyramids were being bad that had fat even lower down, equal with meat at the bottom. Lots of vegetables were still encouraged, and a small amount of fruit (preferably berries), with optional small amounts also of nuts/seeds, starchy tubers.

Dairy, once vilified by paleo, had been welcomed back in some forms of high-fat paleo, or what's now called primal. High-fat dairy such as cream or butter, fermented, or raw forms were preferred.

This is one of my favourite primal pyramids, with fat in a group at the bottom, followed by meat and veggies, smaller amounts of dairy, then berries:

Or this plate emphasising fat, protein, some vegetables and minimal fruit:

Here's the Weston A Price's food pyramid, with fatty meats at the bottom, followed by dairy, eggs, more fat, then vegetables and fatty fruit, berries, and some grains at the very top:

Replace the grains with tubers and you have a very nice primal diet, very rich in fat and low in carbs.





But is replacing grains with tubers enough to make a healthy primal diet? We'll see after two honourable mentions...

A very simple one, feel free to play with the proportions.

Perfect Health Diet:

The new recommendations for the perfect health diet includes:

• 1/2 - 1 lbs meat
• 1 lb starchy tubers and white rice
• 1 lb sweet vegetables (eg carrots), berries, and other fruit
• 1 lb or more other vegetables

...
2000kcal: 6oz grains, 2.5c veg, 2c fruit, 3c milk, 5.5oz meat.   http://www.choosemyplate.gov/food-groups/downloads/MiniPoster.pdf

Tubers like potatoes are ~20% carb, bread is ~50%, and at 16oz versus 8oz recommendations this means the Perfect Health Diet recommends ~80% the starch the MyPlate does! The only real difference is that grains are replaced with tubers! Estimating with weight to cups, it actually contains more fruit/sweet vegetables than the USDA recommends too!

...	MyPyramid	MyPlate	PHD
Meat	6-9 oz (cooked) ~8-12 oz (raw)	6.5 oz (cooked) ~8 2/3 (raw)	8-16 oz
Veg	4 cups	3 cups	16 oz = ~5 cups chopped broccoli
Fruit	1.5 cups	2 cups	16 oz = ~3.5 cups chopped carrots or ~3 cups strawberries
Grains	9 oz	8 oz	16 oz tubers (= ~6 1/2oz grain equivalent)
Dairy	2-3 cups	3 cups	...
Fat/Sugar	73g in total	7 tsp ?added?	4tbsp = 60g

Here's an edit of the food plate showing how full circle 'paleo' has gone with the Perfect Health Diet:

Seriously, the Perfect Health diet recommends 15% calories from protein, ~30-40% carbs, rest from fat. This is like eating pizza, albeit gluten-free pizza but still pizza! Domino's "Might Meaty" large pizza is 2200 calories, 21% protein, 31% carbs, 48% fat, this is slightly higher protein than the Perfect Health diet recommends so better take some meat off the pizza, and make sure to order it gluten-free (they do this now). Do you really think this makes such a difference? Eating this kind of diet is like eating junk food, swapping grains for tubers will hardly change the diet from a hugely obesogenic one to a healthy one! Seriously, replacing one kind of carbohydrate with another isn't going to make a difference for many people.

We need to stop mucking about and go back to what worked: when paleo was low-carb.

Here's what I think we should be eating:

One last picture that made me laugh quite a bit: