An eat real food pyramid?
There is a new food pyramid. And…I…like it?!
There is seemingly only one hard division, making only two separate groups. The really big one with meat, dairy, fruits, vegetables and fats. And a small one with whole grains. And the directive to eat real food and limit ultra processed foods.
I say it all the time: I am not the food police. But I also have 28 years of experience in eating sugar and ultra processed foods nearly exclusively. And 20 years of eating mostly real food and not eating my drug foods. And I can tell you that everything about my life is different than it was before I got my eating under control. And part of it is *what* I was eating.
My body, my mind, my hormones, my skin, my emotions, my cognitive functions, literally everything works better when I eat real food. That I also abstain from sugar and simple carbohydrates I’m sure helps.
Look, I DO still eat processed foods. Dehydrated cheese and pork rinds are indeed processed. Not like, say, pizza rolls and pop tarts, but still processed. There is propylene glycol in the chocolate flavor that I put in my ice cream. I sometimes wonder if I am single-handedly keeping sweet-n-low in business…
But most of my food is food. Butter and olive oil and green beans and gorgeous steaks and full fat Greek yogurt and so much bacon!
I like that we as a culture are moving away from carbohydrates. Not because there is anything inherently wrong with them. But because the food industry in the US and the average American diet abuses them. Sugar and carbohydrates are the primary ingredients in our ultra processed diet. Always making ALL food sweeter. Not just sweets. To get us hooked enough to eat more than we want and much more than we need. People from other countries think our regular grocery store bread tastes like cake. I have seen sugar in frozen fish! I have had to stop buying so many products over the years because the formula changed to include sugar, starch, or alcohol in the first 4 ingredients. To this day I still read labels in case some sugar or starch got snuck in.
I know that not everyone is going to be addicted to sugar. Just like not everyone is going to be an alcoholic. But that doesn’t mean it’s not hurting everyone’s bodies and brains when they use it.
I know that “fed is best” for all people, not just babies. I know that there are a million and one reasons, political, social, and personal, why someone may only eat processed foods. I am not the food police!
But I hope this change on a bigger scale can help change the ideas of people now, and find more young parents, more kids growing up now, and maybe make a difference for their kids in the future. And maybe that’s a kid who doesn’t end up an addict.
onceafatgirl 