My Snarky Sarcasmic Rant - Dumbing Down the Food Pyramid

I speak fluent sarcasm.  My husband says I am sarcasmic. Granted, sarcasmic is not a real word (yet), but we've both adopted it into our vocabulary.  I prefer the term snarky - it stings a little less and doesn't seem quite as mean-spirited as sarcastic.

Call it simplified or call it dumbed down - either way, say goodbye to the pyramid of confusion and hello to "My Plate" - the new and improved USDA nutritional guidelines.  With 68 % of Americans already obese and a staggering increase in childhood obesity - our government finally recognized that we needed it dumbed down.  Maybe we didn't like the pyramid so we ignored it.  Maybe we didn't understand the concept of the portion sizes. No matter, the food pyramid was a good concept that failed miserably.

In our defense, the government was not very clear with the specifics of the food pyramid.  Too much was left up to interpretation.  How big is the pyramid?  How big is a serving? It looks as if a whole loaf of bread is a serving. Did we even know that a small, square inch cube of cheese is considered an entire dairy serving? When we eat dinner out, we are often served almost the entire pyramid in one meal.........MINUS the fruits and vegetables. Sorry, apple pie ala mode doesn't count (it's found at the tiny top of the pyramid which is a picture of sugar or salt).  

It's not entirely our fault that we misunderstood  the recommended portion sizes. I blame the media (hey why not - they get blamed for everything else) and their evil, suggestive selling techniques.  It seems whenever I watch television, every other commercial is food related.  It always looks great but the portions grossly differ from "My Plate".  Take this rack of ribs served with a pile of french fries and a tablespoon of coleslaw.  Like the prize in a box of Cracker Jacks - maybe you'll be lucky enough to find a pickle spear under the wet nap when it's time to clean your saucy fingers.  That counts as a vegetable, doesn't it?



Hence the creation of  "My Plate".  Look closely at the picture.  Does it look familiar? That's right - it's a baby plate with divided sections.  Apparently we need to be treated like children so that we don't eat ourselves into an early grave; or, even worse, feed our kids into obesity.  Sorry my fellow Americans, I'm in agreement on this one. We do need it dumbed down for us.  We were given a fair chance to intellectualize and make the food pyramid work and we failed.  I admit, we didn't ALL fail, but the majority of us did.  The result - children being diagnosed with type II diabetes, once called adult onset diabetes.  Type II diabetes is directly linked to diet and obesity.  That's just not okay considering we AND our public school systems feed our children.

Hopefully this one works.  Hopefully our public schools stop serving chocolate milk to our children and stop taking away recess as a punishment for stepping out of line or talking in class.  Children need to be more active and they need better choices nutritionally.  Snarky Happy Skinny Mrs out.

*If you'd like to learn more about the new and simplified nutrition recommendations, go to ChooseMyPlate.gov