The latest in government propaganda: Eat Real Food

[Kimstu]

@HMS_Irruncible

The takeaway seems to be “eat what you want as long as it’s not processed.” It could’ve been better, but I can’t see how it’s drastically worse than previous offerings in this category.

Well, the actual website information linked in the OP is pretty fucking ridiculous (besides having a massively clunky user interface). The caption on the 1992 “old food pyramid” image says:

For decades we’ve been misled by guidance that prioritized highly processed food, and are now facing rates of unprecedented chronic disease.

But if you look at the pictures, the types of actual food items shown are mostly exactly the same. There is zero visual indication of what’s supposed to be so “highly processed” about the old food-pyramid foods.

I mean, sure, cutting back on simple starches and food additives is good advice in general, but it’s not like the Department of Health hasn’t already been telling us that for decades. As other posters have noted, a more effective approach would be to cut out all those agricultural corn and soybean subsidies that make the production of highly processed foods so artificially cheap.

The “Eat Real Food” propaganda emphasis on “personal responsibility” just looks like a weasel way of saying “we’re going to go on subsidizing the commercial production and promotion of all those unhealthy highly processed foods, but if you develop health problems from eating them then it’s your own fault.”

[crowmanyclouds]

@Sage_Rat

So then when you’re saying that we need to go hard on protein - the most expensive whole food, and often the one that requires the most work to prepare safely - I imagine that coming up against a pretty hard wall, when it comes to school budgets.

And hard for folks on SNAP.

[DrDeth]

@Reply

The new version wants you to:

• Eat lots of protein, including a mix of meat and plant sources
• Consume lots of dairy, especially the full-fat version with no added sugar
• Limit juice and alcohol intake
• Avoid processed foods, added sugars, and artificial sweeteners

None of that is Bad advice for most Americans.

@SuntanLotion

Avoid processed foods is a great idea.

True. But hard to do. But what is “processed food”? After all we process food ourselves by cooking it.

@Dewey_Finn

If they really want people to eat more real food, how about drastically reducing government support for ingredients (corn, soybeans, wheat, rice)

I can & have eaten all those. But most of those we export.

This isnt woo, but I question the motives of the Secretary of Woo.

[DSeid]

@DrDeth

But hard to do. But what is “processed food”?

Not so hard. There actually are indices and the target for actual dietary experts is specifically to reduce the ultraprocessed food group, group 4 in the below -

NOVA-Classification-Reference-Sheet.pdf

A decent rule of thumb for most of us is that if one of the first several ingredients is a sweetener or something hard to pronounce then it is quite possibly an ultraprocessed food.

And no the old guidelines never promoted them.

Oh dairy is fine but nothing really special great to eat lots of. That is a myth of the dairy lobbying group. Corn rice wheat, as whole grain products, are wonderful parts of a diet plan.

[nearwildheaven]

Donald Trump should go first, WRT reducing his consumption of ultra-processed foods.

[DrDeth]

@DSeid

And no the old guidelines never promoted them.

Most grocery store bread is pretty damn processed. Same with cereal.

[DSeid]

Yes? The guideline never said that was the bread to be eaten. They did not exclude it but that is not promoting it.

[nearwildheaven]

That bowl with the fruit on it is most likely oatmeal.

[SuntanLotion]

By processed food, I mean something from a box. One can make macaroni and cheese using cheese that isn’t a powder.

[Der_Trihs]

Under the present regime I intend to utterly ignore any recommendation they give.

[Sage_Rat]

@DSeid

A decent rule of thumb for most of us is that if one of the first several ingredients is a sweetener or something hard to pronounce then it is quite possibly an ultraprocessed food.

Added sugar, stripping away Omega-3 oils and re-adding Omega-6 to improve shelf life (or simply avoiding ingredients that would bring in lots of Omega-3s like fish), using grains that have been stripped of fiber, and using minimal or low-fiber/high starch vegetables (e.g. potato sans skin) are probably the key sins of highly processed foods. And, yes, preservatives. (Stabilizers are often natural soluble fibers. They’re probably a positive.)

So expanding on @DSeid 's list, you’ll notice a general lack of seafood, a focus on starchy foods (skinless potato, white flour, white rice, etc.), fiber content lower than 4% of total weight, and the use of palm oil or other high Omega-6 oils.

In general, you want to see a variety of vegetables with skin, grains with husk, and seafood.

[bump]

@Chronos

But the whole “real food” thing, and avoiding “processed food”, is mostly pseudoscience. It’s not like there’s some ingredient called “processing” that is bad for you. There are lots of different kinds of processing, and there’s no reason to expect that they’d all have the same effects. And while there are some studies that show that “most ultraprocessed foods are bad”, they never seem to control for the obvious culprits like “most ultraprocessed food has too much salt”.

That’s usually my gripe as well. “Processing” is shorthand for just about anything done to a raw agricultural product. I mean, something like fresh bakery bread is NOVA category 3, out of a 1-4 scale with 4 being “ultraprocessed”. That’s ridiculous that something made from flour, water, salt, yeast, and a bit of oil is somehow one of those evil processed foods. There’s nothing weird about it in any way.

What it is, is almost straight carbohydrates. That’s the part that’s not great for you, not the processing. Same thing with a fresh bratwurst from a butcher shop- it’s the salt and fat that aren’t great for you, not the fact that they ground up the meat, salted it, seasoned it, and put it into a casing. But it’s also “processed”.

I actually don’t have a lot of heartburn about this new food pyramid. It’s sensible, and it’s actually intuitive with little pictures of foods. I’d think that maybe a combination of this one and the Obama-era plate would be the most intuitive, but nobody at the USDA asked me.

[Babale]

@Chronos

But the whole “real food” thing, and avoiding “processed food”, is mostly pseudoscience. It’s not like there’s some ingredient called “processing” that is bad for you. There are lots of different kinds of processing, and there’s no reason to expect that they’d all have the same effects. And while there are some studies that show that “most ultraprocessed foods are bad”, they never seem to control for the obvious culprits like “most ultraprocessed food has too much salt”.

Yes. There are some terms (most notoriously “natural” or “chemical”) that have a very strong association with health, positive or negative, that is entirely undeserved.

Rattlesnake venom and death cap mushrooms are 100% natural (and organic!). Literally all foods are made up of chemicals.

[robby]

@Chronos

And while there are some studies that show that “most ultraprocessed foods are bad”, they never seem to control for the obvious culprits like “most ultraprocessed food has too much salt”.

On the contrary, I have seen studies that show that even if the exact same type of food is consumed (in terms of calories, amount of fat, carbohydrates, salt, etc.) people tend to gain more weight when eating the ultraprocessed version…mainly because they simply eat more. This may be because the food is more appealing and easier to consume (and also digest).

This even extends to consuming things like smoothies instead of whole fruit and vegetables.

[ZonexandScout]

I’m surprised that RFK Jr. didn’t add, “So, give a copy of this pyramid to your chef and explain its importance. You may need to make some additional budgetary allowances to the staff for your meals.”

[DSeid]

@Chronos

they never seem to control for the obvious culprits like “most ultraprocessed food has too much salt”.

Just add in - that statement is simply not true.

The studies done actually are quite comprehensive, as far as correlation type studies can be. FWIW there are even fairly specific group correlations, with processed meats, especially red meats, strongly associated with excess respiratory mortality, and the sweetened foods group, be it added sugars or artificial sweeteners, associated with neurodegenerative disease mortality increases.

[Lumpy]

@Sage_Rat

Grains are amazing.

They truly are… unless you’re 120 pounds overweight and in full type-II diabetes. In which case rather than having to take insulin or metformin while still eating non-fiber carbohydrates, a low-carb or even full keto diet is often called for.

It’s a pretty apparent observation that people are different and that one size does not fit all. Especially, people really do seem to be on opposite sides of a spectrum with regards to diet and body type; the classic endomorph vs. ectomorph body types. I’ve made the argument before that some people are the human equivalent of “Easy Keepers”: horse breeds that will become overweight or even develop Cushing’s disease if allowed anything but the absolute tiniest amounts of non-structural carbohydrates.

[wguy123]

I don’t see bear or whale in the new food pyramid?

[DSeid]

To flesh that out here is the study I am referencing -

https://www.bmj.com/content/385/bmj-2023-078476

[Sage_Rat]

@Lumpy

It’s a pretty apparent observation that people are different and that one size does not fit all.

Yes and no.

Like, if someone was to say, “Running is good for you.” You might respond by pointing out the very elderly, who are at risk of falling and breaking their hip, people who are wheelchair bound, etc. and so make the claim that, “Everyone’s different. You can’t apply a one-size-fits-all solution.”

Well, yes, but running is good for you. That’s a one-size solution that’s true for basically everyone and for the people for whom it isn’t, that fact is obvious and readily apparent. There’s no mystery to them about the fact that it’s “general guidance” and, specifically, general guidance that doesn’t apply to them.

Feeling like the statement is an absolute law and that anyone who doesn’t obey that law or conform to that law is in “violation of the norms of society” would be a bizarre and irrational view on the statement. A healthy, rational guy in a wheel chair understands that it means that he should push his chair around with his arms and do so at a good enough clip to get his heart rate up.

When I see someone with some bizarre interpretation that nitpicks the thing into gibberish, my general take isn’t that the guidance is incorrect, it would be that certain people, guided by personal fears, cravings, or other proclivities will use any niche or dent to resist the things that scare them. If they fear physical fitness, they’ll see the guidance and search for a rationalization that allows them to avoid it.

If you have celiac, if you have diabetes, etc. or other special medical needs then yes, you may need an individualized nutrition plan. Past that, there’s some minor reason to think that mild variations might be better for different people - but mostly if you’re an athlete or someone who has specialized physical needs for the sake of their profession - but, largely, you’re supplying raw material to your body to turn into flesh, bone, muscle, blood, nerves, brain, and energy. There isn’t that one person whose body is 90% iron and that other person who is 87% calcium. Our needs are all relatively similar (in terms of ratio, not quantity) and while there is some difference in how well someone is able to process certain foods, there’s currently relatively low reason to believe that this has a huge impact on health, when you compare to the larger concerns of people just choosing to eat foods that are recognized as relatively unhealthy and/or in unhealthy quantities. That’s not an issue of dietary guidance, that’s an issue of culture and psychology. Most complaints about the dietary guidance are stemming from said psychology.