The food pyramid - a guide to how many servings from each food group you should be getting a day - was ground into me from a young age. We were taught it in school from the time we were six or seven all the way through to high school health class. The exact number of suggested servings varies wildly depending on who you ask, however, so even if I were the type to blindly believe the things that my teachers tell me (I'm looking at you, Catholic school sex ed class), I'd have a hard time accepting that there's a certain amount of each thing that everyone should be eating, since nutritionists can't even appear to come to a consensus about it.
That being said, I think that there's some validity to the general structure for those without dietary restrictions - eating more servings of veggies than servings of double chocolate fudge ice cream makes a lot of sense. Personally, however, I don't think that I need up to 12 servings of grains a day, especially if white carbs are being grouped in with slow carbs - people thinking that it's healthy to eat an entire loaf of bleached white bread in the course of a day or something just because grains are at the bottom of the pyramid could definitely stand to learn a bit more about nutrition. Not all grains/fruits/veggies/ milk products are equal, and this system isn't designed to reflect that.
I'm wondering if anyone still uses a food pyramid type scheme for either themselves or for their children, or if it's a thing of the past. Were you ever exposed to the food pyramid in school or through some other means, or is this post entirely news to you? What healthy eating strategies (if any) do you use, if you don't use a "recommended servings" breakdown? Even if you've never heard of the food pyramid, do you try to get a specific amount of certain types of food in a day, or do you just make whatever you feel like/is within your budget? Please answer honestly according to your general eating habits, and feel free to tell me if they've changed recently or are prone to changing in times of stress/with the seasons/etc - I'm not going to judge you if you tell me that pizza is the only vegetable in your diet.
That being said, I think that there's some validity to the general structure for those without dietary restrictions - eating more servings of veggies than servings of double chocolate fudge ice cream makes a lot of sense. Personally, however, I don't think that I need up to 12 servings of grains a day, especially if white carbs are being grouped in with slow carbs - people thinking that it's healthy to eat an entire loaf of bleached white bread in the course of a day or something just because grains are at the bottom of the pyramid could definitely stand to learn a bit more about nutrition. Not all grains/fruits/veggies/ milk products are equal, and this system isn't designed to reflect that.
I'm wondering if anyone still uses a food pyramid type scheme for either themselves or for their children, or if it's a thing of the past. Were you ever exposed to the food pyramid in school or through some other means, or is this post entirely news to you? What healthy eating strategies (if any) do you use, if you don't use a "recommended servings" breakdown? Even if you've never heard of the food pyramid, do you try to get a specific amount of certain types of food in a day, or do you just make whatever you feel like/is within your budget? Please answer honestly according to your general eating habits, and feel free to tell me if they've changed recently or are prone to changing in times of stress/with the seasons/etc - I'm not going to judge you if you tell me that pizza is the only vegetable in your diet.
