Beyond the Pyramid

Although I don’t think it undermines the key point here — it’s obviously completely irrational to give the majority of federal agricultural subsidies to meat and diary, and most of the remaining subsidies to things other than vegetables — GFR makes a good point about the “food pyramid.” Interestingly, the Canadian government’s recommendations call for lower numbers of servings. The real lesson here, I think, is that all such recommendations are hopelessly arbitrary; it’s pointless to talk about absolute numbers of servings when it depends entirely on what kind of food within the category is being consumed (9 servings of avocado a day probably isn’t a hot idea, whole grains are better than refined grains, etc.), how much you’re exercising, what your overall health picture looks like, etc. The only potentially useful thing is the ratios; all thing being equal you want to be eating more vegetables than grains and more of either than meat or diary, etc. I don’t see the serving-based food pyramid adding much value.