February 2, 2023 • 46 mins
Nutrition is a big deal -- across the United States, tons of kids learned the basics of nutrition through a handy infographic called the 'Food Pyramid,' which laid out how much of a given food group the average person should consume. But there's much, much more to the story than what you'd see in the average textbook. Join Ben, Noel and Max as they dive into the story of the food pyramid -- and how big business successfully, time and time again, went up against science to make sure consumers kept, well, consuming.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. Let's hear it for our
super producer, Mr Max Williams. Yeah, Noel, right there, I'm
I'm Ben. The three of us are coming in hot
off of an exploration of breakfast Cereal which was went
(00:49):
in some pretty interesting, uh interesting directions, I'd say, But
we also mentioned something that I think has fascinated all
of us. In that episode, we talked about a thing
that many of our fellow Ridiculous Historians may have grown
up with, the food pyramid scheme. WHOA, No, this is
(01:11):
like on like posters in gym class. You know this
is uh, this is this is to be believed fully right,
there's the science behind it. Also, I mean, why can
you believe something that calls itself a pyramid when it's
clearly a triangle. It is not a three D shape.
It is a triangle. It is a food triangle. You
think that came up in the pitch meeting about the thing,
(01:32):
like pyramid just sounds sexier than triangle. Also, do you
think the Illuminati had anything to do with it? Just
just a thought, just putting that out there, all the
sweet stuffs at the top where the unblinking eye goes.
That's right, that's where the stuff belongs, babe at the time. Yeah,
because you know it's the pyramid is you know, you
think of the things at the top being better inherently,
(01:55):
but that's not the case with a pyramid or a triangle.
This isn't really a traditional hierarchy in terms of like
a list, you know, where the lowest is the worst,
in the top is the best. It's sort of inverted
from that in them. Yeah, it really is. The You
have almost doubtlessly heard of this. If you live in
(02:15):
the West, definitely, if you live in the US up
until two thousand and eleven, up until the early two
thousand's really the You would be a school kid and
you be presented with this thing that is yet basically
a triangle, and it's got six sections to your point, well,
at the very bottom, the biggest part of the whole
(02:37):
shebang is bread, cereal, rice, and pasta. And you're you're
you're recommended a number of servings you should have each day.
So the food pyramid says you should mostly be eating
this stuff at the bottom six to eleven servings per day,
and then it goes up to uh, vegetables and fruit
(02:58):
together there like the next two blocks. Right, that's right,
And we you know, we we certainly talked about this
on the cereal episode. How the kind of base of
the pyramid is bread, cereal, rice and pasta and all that.
Then we have veggies and fruits. But also we know
that fruits contain kind of a lot of sugar sometimes,
so best to sort of temper that, maybe veggies should
be that whole section, and then fruits should maybe be
(03:22):
a little bit under sweets. I don't know, like I
think that think certain opinions are divided on whether the
sugar and fruit is like better than the sugar like
you know, refined sugar things like breakfast cereal. Yeah, no,
that's the thing what we're what we're saying now may
strike you as a bit off if you if you
(03:43):
really think through if the number of servings recommended versus
the stuff that you would actually eat every day or
the stuff your doctor nutritionists may have told you to follow.
So yeah, you go above fruit and vegetables, and then
you get to milk, yogurt and cheese as well. As
meat of any kind, and then beans, eggs, and nuts,
(04:06):
the proteins, those are only two to three servings each.
And then at the very very top with the illuminati,
I you've got fat, oils and sweets. I'm just gonna
be a hundred percent honest with you, guys. I have
not ever probably followed this. Yeah, I don't know how.
(04:28):
I mean, I guess the serving. Also, we know serving
sizes in and of themselves are a little problematic because
they used to not really be as much of a
thing in terms of accuracy, you know, And now I
think a lot of these companies have sort of been
pressured maybe not pressured in three where it's probably the law,
into having accurate serving sizes. So while you might think
(04:51):
that like pot pie would be one serving, it's actually
two servings. And those things are about thousand calories of
those those chicken pop if you eat the whole thing.
So but also it's it's it's a it's like a
personal pan pizza, right, Like that's it's for me. I'm
supposed to. I had an entire one of them a
few nights ago, and I don't feel bad at all
(05:12):
about it. I've time Your days are numbered macks. Your
days are numbered. So what's strange about this is for
many people, this is one of those things you didn't
question growing up, right, depending on how old you were,
this was simply presented to you as a fact all
throughout grade school. And one way we can get into
(05:33):
this is with some excellent research by you, Max, where
you cite Jesse Rhodes over Smithsonian Magazine who said the following,
some of the information I learned in school isn't holding
up so well. Pluto's no longer a planet. Basics of
CPR have been heavily revised. So I am now the
absolute last person went around an invented an emergency. And
(05:55):
now the U. S d A is raising the food
Pyramid to make way for a new visual model to
help Americans figure out how to plan a balanced diet.
Is that out yet? What does the new visual model
look like? It certainly didn't get the same press support
that the that the food pyramid did. Oh yeah, it's
called my plate and no already had your socks blown off.
(06:17):
It's been out for twelve years. Yeah, well eleven and
a half years. Isn't that funny? Though? I mean, it
doesn't really surprise me. But I guess you know what
we've already said with all of the posters and just
you know, the Presidential Fitness Challenge and things like that,
that we grew up with the food pyramid, which is
always front and center and to your point, been like
almost presented just to be believed as facts because of
(06:39):
course the government put it out so the government wouldn't
lie to us. Right there, they're they're they're like completely
neutral and uh in terms of our health, right, they
want us to thrive and live our best lives. Yeah,
I don't know, you know, I wish I could say,
I wish I could agree, and I love I think
we both know where this is going. It reminds me
that this is the this is the same country where
(07:02):
growing up there would just be ads for milk, just
trade groups saying you should drink milk, not a specific
kind of milk, not a brand. They just the food
industry was involved. And that's what we see here, right,
because we know diet is not a one size fits
all thing. We know that the food pyramid, which was
(07:23):
introduced and it's uh dominant form in the food pyramid,
forget some things. It forgets that there are good and
bad carbs, good and bad fats. It's a little bit compromised,
you could say, by lobbying groups in the world of
cattle and dairy. Right, of course, those are massive interests.
(07:47):
I mean the whole beef It's What's for Dinner campaign,
you know, our milk exactly, all of that stuff. They
were ubiquitous and was very little actual data behind them.
It was all just kind of like campaigns to get
people on board with these massive industrial interests, you know.
(08:07):
I mean this is like factory farming type stuff. These
are legacy operations. Not to mention, do y'all remember when
they started putting soda machines and schools like that was
a kind of controversial thing at the time, that it
didn't stop them from happening. I distinctly remember being in
high school and you could get surge, which was, you know,
the amount of sugar and caffeine and it's like it
(08:30):
puts Mountain Dew to shame. There was even something called Josta.
I don't even think they make it anymore, but it
was Josta with guarana and it had like a like
a like a panther on the on the on the label,
and it was this kind of like supplemented jen sing
kind of thing. Nobody talks about Josta with Guarana anymore
because it wasn't good and it's not like the kids
(08:53):
that were buying the stuff. We're being policed. You've had
too much soda, little Johnny. No, it was just it
was a commercial interest being inserted into the schools, and
Josta did make a little bit of come of a comeback.
By the way, it is in the Disney Plus series Loki,
if you want to check it out. They remember Johnston
(09:13):
at this This is true, and people would pay a
lot of money to for those sodas right there, would
be more expensive than your average non school based vending machine.
So yeah, financial interests were definitely involved in some of
the decisions here that were presented as fact. So you
could argue the food Pyramid has it something like a
(09:35):
conspiracy in its origin story. But let's let's talk about that.
Let's talk about the origin. So the U s d
A back in the day formed their first dietary guidance
for Americans based on a farmer's bulletin that was written
(09:57):
by a guy named wo at Water in eighteen ninety four.
At Water, who worked for the Office of Experiments Stations
in the U. S d. A. Right, sounds completely above board, right,
How big is that? What do you do for a
living sir? Well, baby, I like to experiment, Yeah, stations
(10:21):
at stations. Uh, he said, Okay, I'm going to figure
out diets. But his diet was, uh, specifically for American males.
He said, We're gonna look at the ideal level of protein, carbohydrate, fat,
and mineral matter, specifically ash that these growing boys need. Yeah,
(10:43):
Noll's making the perfect face for that. Yeah. He said
that went in at the end, like as a byproduct
of Yeah. Well, I mean I know that ash can
be a good like nutrient rich thing for for looking
for soil. Yeah, of course, are you not eating enough ash? I?
I don't know. I've never really thought about it as
(11:05):
as part of my my nutritional portfolio until this exact minute. Um.
But specifically, we're talking also about minerals and vitamins like iron,
vitamin C, calcium and all of that stuff. And as
we know and discussed in the serial episode, some of
these things became kind of like buzz terms, you know,
like your daily allowance, you know of vitamins, not allowance. Uh,
(11:27):
it's it's a necessity. You want x amount of vitamin
C and UH and calcium in your daily diet, and you, boy,
how do you can achieve that with one bowl of
Captain crunch or ash or ash. Uh. Yeah, it's weird
because he says ash. We think because like like you
were saying nol at this point in time, there were
(11:49):
a lot of specific minerals of vitamins that science didn't
know about that and they hadn't been able to pin
down those culprits. Uh. So, well, it's fast forward. The
first complete U s D. A Food Guide Food for
Young Children, is written by a nutritionist named Carolyn Hunt,
and it comes out in nineteen sixteen. I think this
(12:11):
is where we start to see the predecessors of the
food pyramid. Yeah, like instead of you know, talking about
minerals that we're talking more about food stuffs like milk
and meats, cereals, grains, pasta, you know, vegetables and fruits,
fats and fatty foods, sugars and other foods that are
(12:31):
high in sugar um. The food guide that we're in
question here was followed up in nineteen seventeen by Specific
dietary recommendations. And I think this is maybe when we
started really hearing these referred to as food groups, because
that's also a thing I remember from health class growing up,
is talking about how important the food groups are. Yeah. Yeah,
(12:52):
it's this is where we were taught that foods rolling
clicks and you have to be care of all which
clicks you mess with. Uh. Yeah, the there are these
five groups, right. Um, there's a little bit of change
over time, but basically they're the same groups that will
later end up in the food pyramid. In nineteen seventeen,
(13:14):
the very next year, there is a publication called how
to Select Foods and it is full of dietary recommendations
based on this five food group theory. In the nineteen thirties,
of course, the depression comes along. Life is absolutely terrible
for most people living in the country, and a lot
(13:36):
of people are trying to survive intense economic hardship, a
lot of privation. You know, you could say, hey, here
are the food groups all the live long day, but
the reality is a lot of people can't afford to
eat healthy and this definitely influenced diet advice. Yeah, I mean,
they maybe wouldn't have access to certain types of produce
(13:58):
or they wouldn't have access you he knows what we
would maybe considered today certain areas being called food deserts.
But this is sort of twofold that there was like
a lot of non arable lands, you know, because of
the dust bowl and agriculture becoming increasingly difficult because of
droughts and in certain parts of the country. So yeah,
you literally wouldn't have access to that. So it was
all about just kind of getting your calories in so
(14:21):
that you could survive. I mean, I always think of, uh,
you know, there's a really heartbreaking scene in the Grapes
of Wrath where a grown adult is I think, like
drinking breast milk from from somebody, you know, because that
was the only way they could actually get sustenance. It's yeah,
it's the harrowing, right, and this is where we start
(14:44):
to see food economist Wait and so nine getting very
terrible time. Hazel Steebling is a food economist working for
the U. S d A. And she develops food plans
that are specifically meant to be cheap. There they're supposed
(15:05):
to be um tiered in terms of cost. This will
help you shop for food, you know, or this is,
you know, if you look at it as you get
to the lower cost there's an emphasis on being able
to grow your own vegetables right to to avoid having
to spend money you don't have at the grocery store,
(15:26):
and they give you twelve major food groups and it's
like a week by week thing. It's it's pretty interesting.
I've seen um similar stuff honestly, in like survival advice,
like here's the basic food you need to survive in
the woods when you're camping. Well, because a lot of
this stuff, you know, at the end of the day
(15:48):
is a luxury, you know, to to be able to
choose to eat healthy and to have a variety of
food stuffs in your diet as opposed to just like
eating neutral loaf for some sort of like bar that
just gives you, you know, the bare essentials of what
a human body needs to survive. Oh and you know
what we got. We put our cards before our fats here.
(16:12):
Sorry everybody. Uh. The U s d A is is
the short name for the United States Department of Agriculture.
Just the case that isn't clear if everybody thought we
were saying, you know, the uniform stressful diet of uniform
stressful diet adherents. No, it's it's agriculture anyway. So World
(16:33):
War two starts. We're out of the depression, but now
there's a huge war and countries are all across the
board kind of trying to keep their citizens healthy and
give them good advice while also knowing that everybody is
having a tough time. Again, this is the era of
(16:54):
war rationing. Right. In some parts of the world, you
have coupons that allow you to buy stuff and only
certain amounts. Had a McCloud in writing for Smoky Mountain
News and you found this one. Max notes that the
food pyramid, as we recognize it, was born out of hardship,
(17:14):
and you can tell, Hannah argues, because there are some
things that are just confusing the way that they're grouped.
That's right. The US Department of Agriculture U s d
A released the Basic Seven Food Guide, so we're down
from twelve now to seven, with the tagline US needs
a strong eat the Basic seven every day. And this
(17:37):
grouping actually wasn't awful, like it had a little bit
of of nuts and bolts kind of sense behind it.
Raw cabbage somehow, though, ended up in the oranges, tomatoes,
and grapefruit section, um, instead of in the vegetables or
the green and yellow vegetables section, which is a little odd.
Also in the same way that I think it's odd
(17:58):
that that a tomato is a fruit, although it is
that for scientific reasons, because of the seeds and all
of that. Yeah, you just thinking about that first thing
in the morning. You're like, I could have my orange juice,
I can have like grape fruit juice. I could have
my cabbage juice. Mmmmmmm. I can't wait till someone figures
out a cereal that combines grain and cabbage. Well, if
(18:20):
I'm not mistaken, cabbage was also a very hardy crop
and uh and very you know, um contained a lot
of those essential vitamins and minerals and calories. So I
mean it was you know, here in Atlanta, we've got
a neighborhood called Cabbage Town and that's because a lot
of farmers would sell their cabbages there during times of
economic difficulty, and it was something that the average folks
(18:43):
could afford. Is that really white cabbage towns name that?
Oh that's cool? Hey, Like, can I get the more?
You know? Perfect? Thank you, thank you? Noel. I learned
something today. Yes, the idea is. The idea here is
(19:05):
to incentivize people also to eat things that they might
not normally eat, so that we can get around some
of the constraints of war. The very first quote unquote
food pyramid doesn't really come from World War two, though,
it comes from the nineteen seventies and another time of
(19:28):
economic hardship, not in the US but in Sweden. Here
in the US, a lot of people see Sweden as
a pretty expensive country, and it is in some ways.
So they were fighting high food prices back in the seventies,
and so the government went to the National Board of
Health and Welfare and said, all right, we need your
(19:51):
help with this. We need to help people navigate this
runaway inflation, these food prices. So this group, this National Board,
the Social Steels, they say, all right, here's how we're
going to divide this. We're gonna talk about basic and
supplementary foods. Basic foods are the things you have to
eat to survive. Supplementary foods are things that provide vitamins
(20:15):
and minerals that your basic stuff doesn't. Right, Um, So,
so you know, supplementary, just like the word uh means
typically things that are not absolute necessities, you know, to survival,
perhaps maybe a little bit more of a luxury. But
it was Anne britt aggn stature agg Stator who worked
(20:36):
for the cooperative fur Bundit, which is a Swedish coop
union um representing retail and grocery workers. It was her
who pushed the idea to the next level, uh and
gave it kind of a bit of a codification. So
this essentially took the ideas that the social Steelson had
(20:58):
about basic food groups to the next level by developing
the idea of a proportional model, you know, sort of
a hierarchy something of a triangle, you know, with the
most important stuff on the bottom, and then as it
progressed and tapered to a point, you'd see the less
uh necessary foods represented. So it was kind of almost
(21:20):
like a hierarchy of needs kind of situation where it's like, Okay,
you're fine if you just stick to these big ones
on the bottom, and as it goes upward, you're not
gonna die from from malnutrition if you maybe don't have
enough of these. Yeah, and this really is a master shrow.
This is a great idea because most people in the
(21:42):
world then as now are not nutritionists us included. So
having that visual representation makes the information uh hate the
accidental wordplay here easy to digest. You know, you can
look at it and you can your brain can instaly
intuitively understand I should have more of this, I should
(22:04):
have less of this. It's not perfect, but it's a
really cool idea and props to you on a brit
So the Swedish public learns about this shortly thereafter. It's
published in an annual magazine by that Swedish cooperative union
and the headline is good wholesome food at reasonable prices.
(22:27):
They also had a little bit of tention. At this point.
The Swedish government tried to distance itself from the pyramid
to introduce something called a dietary circle, the old circle
versus the pyramid and arguments to this day. Yeah yeah.
And the the thing was this circular model could show
(22:52):
you what foods were important, but unlike the pyramid, it
didn't explicitly show you how much of each type of
food should be consumed. Anyway, this was the first of
its kind and it was a triangle or a pyramid
in shape, but it was not not the one that
(23:13):
you might know and love from the US. There were
some very different aspects of these the one from the US,
the westernized model. It's different not so much because there
was a better understanding nutrition health over time. It's like
we tease the beginning, this model was affected by lobbyists,
(23:34):
by interest groups in big agriculture, in the food industry. Uh,
they were through willing to throw millions of dollars into
how their products were represented here. Well, Ben, you might
have a different perspective or more nuanced, but like the U.
S Department of Agriculture, it is a regulatory body, but
(23:55):
it was originally, you know, established to promote agriculture and
to make sure that farmers and farms had what they
needed because this is an important part of the you know,
um economic portfolio of the country, not to mention um,
making sure that citizens had what they needed to survive
and to eat. So it makes sense that they would
(24:18):
kind of from the start have been in bed with
big business rep interest that represented agriculture when we moved
from like a more agrarian economy to something that that
was really represented by more corporate kind of structures. Yeah,
and you know that's well said. And also I would
(24:38):
add that we don't want to demonize these groups entirely.
The reality is they need to have they need to
exist because this way you can enforce some uniform standards, right,
some safety practices, some higiatic stuff there. There is a
good reason for them to be there. But also they
are private industries, so their primary thing is going to
(25:01):
be profit year over year. The U s d A's
Food Guide comes out UH mid nineteen eighties. It's called
a Pattern for Daily Food Choices UH and it had
been used for a while, but people didn't know a
lot about it. So it's when the eggheads in the
(25:22):
US decide, all right, we're gonna we're gonna do what
the Swedish did. We're gonna make a graphic presentation of
our food guide, and we're gonna try to easily show
people three things. Variety, how much different stuff should I eat? Proportionality,
how much of it should I eat in comparison to
other groups? And moderation when should have pumped the brakes
(25:45):
on all that sweet sweet sugar. And they also arrived
at a pyramid. It just sounds good, it sounds official,
it sounds like a plan, but it's also pr because
on the one hand. Yeah, they're putting out these guys
that they have plausible deniability when they also green light
soda machines and schools. You know what I mean. Now,
(26:08):
I mean I like a Coca Cola Classic as a treat,
but I mean, I you know, kind of cut that
of my life in favor of you know, less caloric
sugary fizzy drinks. You know, I'm coffee, but I like
the you know, lacroise of the world. And obviously we're
living in the time now where sugary drinks have a
bad rap, you know, for good reasons. So a lot
(26:29):
of those companies have had to diversify and do more
like kind of you know, uh, low calorie fizzy water
kind of alternatives. Yeah, this is um, this is a
good point. No, not everybody is a fan of Laka
or Montane or whatever, but the lacroix. But the you know,
I like, what's the old joke, the lemon flavored saltzer
(26:52):
water sounds like you're walking down a hallway and someone
in another room goes lemon like like this, it's more
for the fizz. Yeah, I've heard described as somebody shouting
the name of a fruit from the next room. My
girlfriend thinks that, uh like flavored lacroix and stuff taste
like television static. I don't. Yeah, especially the citrus ones
(27:15):
for some reason, it sparks me Snastasia. Have you guys
had the lemon cello le cello? Yes, it's I don't like,
it's way too much. I mean, I I like just
plain soda water, So like if I had one with
a little bit of lemon, that's good to me. But
like that's like, oh god, what is this? Yeah, I'm
I'm like, give me a good iced coffee, you know, uh,
(27:38):
And I'll take a I'll take as soda as a
treat because I associate them with going to the movies,
you know what I mean, that's where you get the
popcorn in the soda and make the bad food decisions.
But do you ever put Eminem's in your popcorn? That's
the thing people apparently do. Yeah, I do it all
the time, right on. I mean what I eat popcorn?
I guess I didn't know that you were a monstrosity. Man,
(27:59):
m It's is good. I like Reese's pieces, and a
lot of people just realized Reese's pieces or Reese's pieces.
I like to call them contain no chocolate. It's basically
just just peanut butter with a thin candy shell. And
the only reason they're so famous is because Eminem's didn't
work out for Et the Extraterrestrial. They're supposed to be
(28:19):
Eminem's originally product placement. The hell of a drug product placement, baby. Anyway,
this show is brought to you by Josta. All Right,
so the Food Guide Pyramid, let's might surprise people who
have grown up with it in your entire life. The
(28:41):
Food Guide Pyramid wasn't released until nineteen ninety two, which
really blew my mind right to me, it's just something
that I always have known. I just assume that it
has been around. It seems like a sixties thing, doesn't
it kind of even design. Yeah, so there may be
things where the sweeter model was presented in some textbooks
(29:02):
or something beforehand. But the Official Food Guide Pyramid, as
the u S understands it, comes out supposed to help
you visualize, uh, the proportion, proportions and moderation you should
be using from those dietary guidelines. It shows you the
name names of the food groups and some basically clip
art of what they look like like. Here is a
(29:24):
loaf of bread. Oh that's a fish. Uh. And they're separated,
you know, they're segregated throughout the pyramid. You can see,
um the variety in those pictures, the little icons of
what kind of food counts as a grain or a
bread or a post or whatever. Then you can see
proportionality because they'll give you a rough size in the
(29:47):
pyramid and then the list servings even though you know,
again as we know, serving sizes or wildly misrepresented here
in in US grocery stores. Yeah, I mean, like I said,
if you know where to look, you can get whatever
the U s D A appropriate serving size is for
a given product. But a lot of people don't dig
(30:07):
that deep and assume that, like I can just eat
the whole pot pie or eat the whole you know,
lean cuisine or whatever it might be. But usually if
you get a small bag of chips, even that's like
two serving sizes, even though you you would assume then
it's this is meant to be consumed in one sitting.
This is one serving because it comes in a small bag, right,
And restaurants don't help either. That's the thing that continually
(30:30):
baffles my friends who are not from the United States.
A lot of times when people visit the United States,
the first thing they clock is the wide variety of
food and the fact that so much food is thrown
at you. Free refills are not a thing, and a
lot of other parts of the world, but that that's
always amazing to me as well. You know, when when
(30:52):
I go through phases where I don't go to a
bunch of restaurants, I'm still continually amazed when I realize
almost any main core so I order is like two meals. Yeah,
and if you go to like a fine dining place,
for example, you might bulk at the serving size or
like the amount of food on the plate, but if
it's done well and it tastes good, you'll probably end
(31:14):
up getting the sample more small plates and small kind
of things and not walk away hungry, but also not
walk away gorged, which I think, to me is the
perfect meal experience. You know, I want to taste different things,
have an enjoyable culinary experience, but not feel like Logi
and horrible afterwards. Back because I see your eyes lighting
(31:35):
up here. Yes, yes, yes, as Nol and Ben both No,
I've spent many days tending tending a tending a table
or or tending a bar. And I remember I worked
at a tapas restaurant at one point, and you would
have like guys, like guys come in, you know, twenties,
thirties and stuff like that, and they order their food
and they look their plate and they'll be just like,
what is this. I'm like, it's topas mat It's supposed
(31:57):
to be really small. You're supposed to get like five
of the They're like, I thought it was topless. Where's
the poll? You know, we actually worked on a concept
of a place called topless tapas where all of us
were topless. I mean it wasn't It wasn't not a
sexual way. It's an artistic way. Every everyone everyone's topless,
you know, like the cooks, the customers, everyone. Well, okay,
(32:21):
the genius tapas is uh someone saying, hey, what if
we just charged eight more dollars for this appetizer? Actually,
I'm I'm being rude because that's us tapas. Tapas where
they're from in Spain, are supposed to come free at
wine bars to keep you drinking wine. That's where tapas
(32:41):
come from, and their association got americanized a little bit.
Tapas places can be delicious. It's just that Bill sneaks
up on you. That Bill will come for you at
the end. Uh. And most of my friends who love
tapas love it because they go on they go on
dates where some one else pays at the top of
his restaurant. If I'm ever in a situation like that,
(33:04):
my friends, I'm gonna come back radicalized. I'm gonna be like,
oh my god, have you guys heard of tapas? It's amazing?
What about stroop Waffles? You guys know about stroop waffles
in this incredible delicacy from you know, my travels, my
backpacking travels. They're not bad with coffee, are you? Are
(33:24):
you a stroop waffle guy? I get him at Rufford
Highway farmer's work. That's where you get more variety. But
the joke is as they just dude that I follow
on TikTok made a funny video where he did a
song about some kind of brow e dude like like saying, hey,
if you heard of stroop waffles? I discovered them in
my travels abroad and scanned Dnavia. But the joke is
(33:44):
that you get him at Starbucks and they've been there
for you know, years. Yeah, yeah, okay, I got you.
Well this this guy might be a little confused if
he's trying to figure out where stroop raffle waffle fits
in to the food pyramid. And that's because the food
pyramid is still kind of imperfect. You would know that, uh,
(34:06):
the very top of the pyramid is more a category
of things that can be added to foods. So candy
is high in sugar, that exists in the top part.
That the part you're supposed to use spared lee. Uh,
foods that are high and fat might fit in there too,
maybe think just some really good fatty barbecue brisket. But
(34:30):
to your point, ben, fats have gotten maligned, you know,
convenient by the sugar industry. So there's this push and
pull between all of these different interests, you know, in
terms of like which is the good thing and which
is the bad thing, and how can we kind of
spin it one way or the other. But there are
fats and certain amounts of fats that are good you
know or quote unquote good good fats, And it's all
(34:53):
about balance at the end of the day. That is
irrespective of some sort of like pr line because you know,
we know and we've done this from the start. This
really is more about protecting these interests and representing them
and covering the butts of the U. S d A,
who also do things behind closed doors that are not
(35:13):
very good for, you know, the health of citizens of
the United States. I'm so glad you're saying that there's
a reason for the structure of the pyramid. Max to
this with some like unsolved mysteries, musics. There it is.
(35:36):
It was bought and paid for. According to Louise Lights,
one of the nutritionists who worked on making the Food
Pyramid for the U. S d A, the original version
the one nutritionist came up with looked at heck of
a lot different from the one that ended up being published.
The Office of the Secretary of Agriculture altered wording to
(35:57):
emphasize processed food over fresh and whole foods, and to
downplay things like lean meat or low fat dairy. They
also changed the servings, which is one of the most
important parts of the equation. They upped the grains and
they lowered the servings of fruit and veg Right. Well,
let's also not forget that the history of this thing
(36:19):
really was one of economic scarcity. You know, of of
of issues where like what's the most affordable thing, and
that's why we have a bit of a health crisis
or you know, I mean, I think it's mainly heading
in the right direction now, but with things like you know,
processed foods and and fast food and all of that
stuff that is very limited lee regulated, you know, I mean,
(36:42):
it's all about freedom of choice here in the United States.
It's not necessarily about how can we make sure that
people are making the right choices so that we don't
have to you know, cover their diabetes treatment and have
private insurance rates skyrocket, whereas in other countries, yeah, you
might have slightly limited, more limited choices, but it's also
(37:03):
more affordable to get healthcare, and like everybody gets it
because there's more of a culture of moderation in other
countries that doesn't really exist in this country because we're
a country who's based on free market economy and choices
and therefore advertising a k a. Essentially um propaganda, you know,
(37:25):
that's making people feel good about eating these fatty, nostalgic
kind of foods. You know. Yeah, this podcast brought to
you by Fatty Nugs, just pure breaded nuggets of fat.
A Tyson production. I don't think fatty nugs or a
thing yet. I think it's something different. I think that's uh,
(37:47):
that's different. That's a different type of agriculture here. It is.
So you fast forward. Everybody knows that are problems with this.
You fast forward. In two thousand and five, the food
pyramid in the US is revised and they're trying to
correct some things here. They get rid of some things
that could have influenced people towards bad decisions. They get
(38:10):
a redesign, and people have problems with it. People have
problems that would seem weirdly specific unless you're in the industry.
For instance, the Potato Boys, which is are just it's
not a weird cartoonish Irish gang from the eight hundreds.
It's not from Gang of of New York. It's a
street term for lobbyists. The Potato Lobbying group. They were
(38:31):
super mad because they felt that potatoes were de emphasized
in the new graphics. You know, we've given you so
much money, what are you doing here? And then they
also said, look, if you want good nutrition advice with
this thing, you can't just see it on the pyramid.
You have to go to the U S d A website,
(38:52):
because the pyramid itself now doesn't give you any information
about serving importion sizes. It's just about proportion of food
groups to each other. Yeah, and you know, you think,
to the discerning consumer, this wouldn't be an issue. You
could go and you know, do your own homework. But no,
when it comes to graphics and things that are presented
(39:13):
to the general population, simple is the key, you know,
and dumbing it down is the way is the name
of the game. So if you're one of these industries
and you're looking at the official you know, image that's
being put out and your product isn't on there represented
in the actual picture, that's a real problem, you know,
(39:34):
because no one typically is going to look past the cover,
you know, the of the book they're they're not or
like the blurb. But right, it's all about appearances because
by large, most consumers aren't going to be savvy in
that way and aren't going to look behind the scenes
to actually see what else is there. Yeah, yeah, and
(39:55):
so it's still an imperfect system. That's why in two
thousand eleven, the U s d A released My Plate
like my Space, but it's a plate never Yeah, I
think it was past our time. Uh, and this just said, uh,
let's think not in terms of what you should eat
per day, but what you should eat per meal. And
(40:17):
the plate is split up into four basically equal parts,
with a side of dairy beside the plate because the
milk lobby, the dairy lobbies still have a lot of
a lot of cow juice juice. But also this makes
me think of, like with more vegan lifestyles and vegetarian lifestyles,
that doesn't really jibe with the with the food pyramid
(40:40):
or with any of this stuff, because it seems, you know,
on the surface that you're leaving out all of these
important sections potentially right or that, or that it's like
it's weighted incorrectly, you know. Yeah, And then you can
also see that this is a continuing conversation. Something like
this has to just it's good that it exists, but
(41:02):
it's not the be all and all solution. Maybe we
wrap up today's show by talking about some other countries
around the world who have taken their own shot at this.
I'm particularly impressed with China's because Belgium and China both
hit two big things that the US Food Pyramid forgot
(41:25):
well Belgium first of all, called it what Max said
it should have been called from the start, which is
the food triangle, because it's true, a a pyramid is
a three dimensional object, and and it really is. It's triangle,
but pyramid just sounds sex here. I do love that
China did the lean into the whole, like you know,
um structural aspect of it by calling it the food Pagoda,
(41:47):
which is sort of like a Chinese pyramid in some ways.
I guess, I don't know it's a structure, but they Okay.
So the really smart thing that they do in the
Food guide Pagoda is they recommend the big miss equation,
which every nutritionist will tell you if you want to
live a healthy lifestyle, A big part of it is
what you eat. But the other big part is moderate
(42:11):
regular exercise. So they include recommended physical activities. Uh something
works out to being like walking six thousand steps a day. Uh.
And then Belgium they put water in the food pyramid.
How do we forget about water? How do we water?
We haven't said that one time this whole episode, shouting
(42:32):
out like three different sodas three different times. Yeah, water
is is crucial. I mean water as We've talked about
many times on stuff they don't want you to know
is probably going to be one of the resources that's
going to cause serious division in terms of the availability
of it, who controls it. And that's because you can
(42:53):
survive without eating food for I think longer than you
can without drinking water. I believe that's that's accurate. Yes,
that is accurate. If you are out in terrible sideways situation,
one of the first things you want to secure where
is some kind of access to potable water, especially if
you think you're going to be stuck there. It's just
(43:15):
a terrible way to go. And it is kind of
a bummer that we have to think about this stuff
in somewhat dystopian terms sometimes. But let's go back to
the start of all of this, which was the Great Depression,
which is about as mad Max as our country has
ever become. You know, hey, you speaking of Max mad
Max just in terms of you know, Thunderdome and like
a arid waste land that we you know, have to
(43:37):
fight for our lives in order to survive. In Mad Max.
What I would argue is the best Mad Max movie,
uh Fury Road. It's all about control over the water
supply aqua Coldah. Man, that's good. There's a I can't
wait for the uh the next furiosis. Yeah, so here
(43:59):
we go, folks, the food pyramid. It's a good idea
that is also partially affected by conspiracy. Uh. And if
you are more on the technical side of shapes, then
you will also readily admit this is in fact a
triangle unless you have a defense for why it should
(44:19):
be called the pyramid. We'd love to hear it. Find
us at Ridiculous Historians on Facebook. Thanks of course to
our superproducer, Mr Max Williams. Uh noel, I just started.
This makes me, honestly, this makes him want to thank
a bunch of foods. I know I'm not supposed to eat.
Thanks to bacon on everything, you know what I mean.
Thanks to that fatty brisket. Throw some chocolate in there,
(44:41):
you know what I mean? Oh man, Yeah, fatty nugs.
Yeah yeah, give me a six pack of those or whatever,
six piece fatty nuggets. Indeed huge, Thanks to Jonathan Strickling,
the quister. He's gonna be back around and talk about
something one of these days. I mean, like people, at
this point, I think we're totally full of it that
(45:01):
he has died and that we're just sort of keeping
his legacy alive, promising for him to one day return.
But it'll happen. It's like we were at the We're
at the lawyer's office and he's reading the will and
he and part of his dying wish was for us
to continually act like he was about to be back
on the show. That's really sweet. What's a Boogeyman without
(45:23):
the promise that he might one day appear, you know.
Thanks of course to Christopher aciotas thinks Yves Jeff Co,
Thanks to Alex Williams. Uh No, this is this is
a fun one man. I'm you know what I'm I'm
so thankful we get to do this. Yeah. It was
also a good follow up to our serial series are
Serial Serial If you will, and I think we will.
(45:45):
We'll see you next time. Books. For more podcasts for
my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Some
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. Let's hear it for our
super producer, Mr Max Williams. Yeah, Noel, right there, I'm
I'm Ben. The three of us are coming in hot
off of an exploration of breakfast Cereal which was went
(00:49):
in some pretty interesting, uh interesting directions, I'd say, But
we also mentioned something that I think has fascinated all
of us. In that episode, we talked about a thing
that many of our fellow Ridiculous Historians may have grown
up with, the food pyramid scheme. WHOA, No, this is
(01:11):
like on like posters in gym class. You know this
is uh, this is this is to be believed fully right,
there's the science behind it. Also, I mean, why can
you believe something that calls itself a pyramid when it's
clearly a triangle. It is not a three D shape.
It is a triangle. It is a food triangle. You
think that came up in the pitch meeting about the thing,
(01:32):
like pyramid just sounds sexier than triangle. Also, do you
think the Illuminati had anything to do with it? Just
just a thought, just putting that out there, all the
sweet stuffs at the top where the unblinking eye goes.
That's right, that's where the stuff belongs, babe at the time. Yeah,
because you know it's the pyramid is you know, you
think of the things at the top being better inherently,
(01:55):
but that's not the case with a pyramid or a triangle.
This isn't really a traditional hierarchy in terms of like
a list, you know, where the lowest is the worst,
in the top is the best. It's sort of inverted
from that in them. Yeah, it really is. The You
have almost doubtlessly heard of this. If you live in
(02:15):
the West, definitely, if you live in the US up
until two thousand and eleven, up until the early two
thousand's really the You would be a school kid and
you be presented with this thing that is yet basically
a triangle, and it's got six sections to your point, well,
at the very bottom, the biggest part of the whole
(02:37):
shebang is bread, cereal, rice, and pasta. And you're you're
you're recommended a number of servings you should have each day.
So the food pyramid says you should mostly be eating
this stuff at the bottom six to eleven servings per day,
and then it goes up to uh, vegetables and fruit
(02:58):
together there like the next two blocks. Right, that's right,
And we you know, we we certainly talked about this
on the cereal episode. How the kind of base of
the pyramid is bread, cereal, rice and pasta and all that.
Then we have veggies and fruits. But also we know
that fruits contain kind of a lot of sugar sometimes,
so best to sort of temper that, maybe veggies should
be that whole section, and then fruits should maybe be
(03:22):
a little bit under sweets. I don't know, like I
think that think certain opinions are divided on whether the
sugar and fruit is like better than the sugar like
you know, refined sugar things like breakfast cereal. Yeah, no,
that's the thing what we're what we're saying now may
strike you as a bit off if you if you
(03:43):
really think through if the number of servings recommended versus
the stuff that you would actually eat every day or
the stuff your doctor nutritionists may have told you to follow.
So yeah, you go above fruit and vegetables, and then
you get to milk, yogurt and cheese as well. As
meat of any kind, and then beans, eggs, and nuts,
(04:06):
the proteins, those are only two to three servings each.
And then at the very very top with the illuminati,
I you've got fat, oils and sweets. I'm just gonna
be a hundred percent honest with you, guys. I have
not ever probably followed this. Yeah, I don't know how.
(04:28):
I mean, I guess the serving. Also, we know serving
sizes in and of themselves are a little problematic because
they used to not really be as much of a
thing in terms of accuracy, you know, And now I
think a lot of these companies have sort of been
pressured maybe not pressured in three where it's probably the law,
into having accurate serving sizes. So while you might think
(04:51):
that like pot pie would be one serving, it's actually
two servings. And those things are about thousand calories of
those those chicken pop if you eat the whole thing.
So but also it's it's it's a it's like a
personal pan pizza, right, Like that's it's for me. I'm
supposed to. I had an entire one of them a
few nights ago, and I don't feel bad at all
(05:12):
about it. I've time Your days are numbered macks. Your
days are numbered. So what's strange about this is for
many people, this is one of those things you didn't
question growing up, right, depending on how old you were,
this was simply presented to you as a fact all
throughout grade school. And one way we can get into
(05:33):
this is with some excellent research by you, Max, where
you cite Jesse Rhodes over Smithsonian Magazine who said the following,
some of the information I learned in school isn't holding
up so well. Pluto's no longer a planet. Basics of
CPR have been heavily revised. So I am now the
absolute last person went around an invented an emergency. And
(05:55):
now the U. S d A is raising the food
Pyramid to make way for a new visual model to
help Americans figure out how to plan a balanced diet.
Is that out yet? What does the new visual model
look like? It certainly didn't get the same press support
that the that the food pyramid did. Oh yeah, it's
called my plate and no already had your socks blown off.
(06:17):
It's been out for twelve years. Yeah, well eleven and
a half years. Isn't that funny? Though? I mean, it
doesn't really surprise me. But I guess you know what
we've already said with all of the posters and just
you know, the Presidential Fitness Challenge and things like that,
that we grew up with the food pyramid, which is
always front and center and to your point, been like
almost presented just to be believed as facts because of
(06:39):
course the government put it out so the government wouldn't
lie to us. Right there, they're they're they're like completely
neutral and uh in terms of our health, right, they
want us to thrive and live our best lives. Yeah,
I don't know, you know, I wish I could say,
I wish I could agree, and I love I think
we both know where this is going. It reminds me
that this is the this is the same country where
(07:02):
growing up there would just be ads for milk, just
trade groups saying you should drink milk, not a specific
kind of milk, not a brand. They just the food
industry was involved. And that's what we see here, right,
because we know diet is not a one size fits
all thing. We know that the food pyramid, which was
(07:23):
introduced and it's uh dominant form in the food pyramid,
forget some things. It forgets that there are good and
bad carbs, good and bad fats. It's a little bit compromised,
you could say, by lobbying groups in the world of
cattle and dairy. Right, of course, those are massive interests.
(07:47):
I mean the whole beef It's What's for Dinner campaign,
you know, our milk exactly, all of that stuff. They
were ubiquitous and was very little actual data behind them.
It was all just kind of like campaigns to get
people on board with these massive industrial interests, you know.
(08:07):
I mean this is like factory farming type stuff. These
are legacy operations. Not to mention, do y'all remember when
they started putting soda machines and schools like that was
a kind of controversial thing at the time, that it
didn't stop them from happening. I distinctly remember being in
high school and you could get surge, which was, you know,
the amount of sugar and caffeine and it's like it
(08:30):
puts Mountain Dew to shame. There was even something called Josta.
I don't even think they make it anymore, but it
was Josta with guarana and it had like a like
a like a panther on the on the on the label,
and it was this kind of like supplemented jen sing
kind of thing. Nobody talks about Josta with Guarana anymore
because it wasn't good and it's not like the kids
(08:53):
that were buying the stuff. We're being policed. You've had
too much soda, little Johnny. No, it was just it
was a commercial interest being inserted into the schools, and
Josta did make a little bit of come of a comeback.
By the way, it is in the Disney Plus series Loki,
if you want to check it out. They remember Johnston
(09:13):
at this This is true, and people would pay a
lot of money to for those sodas right there, would
be more expensive than your average non school based vending machine.
So yeah, financial interests were definitely involved in some of
the decisions here that were presented as fact. So you
could argue the food Pyramid has it something like a
(09:35):
conspiracy in its origin story. But let's let's talk about that.
Let's talk about the origin. So the U s d
A back in the day formed their first dietary guidance
for Americans based on a farmer's bulletin that was written
(09:57):
by a guy named wo at Water in eighteen ninety four.
At Water, who worked for the Office of Experiments Stations
in the U. S d. A. Right, sounds completely above board, right,
How big is that? What do you do for a
living sir? Well, baby, I like to experiment, Yeah, stations
(10:21):
at stations. Uh, he said, Okay, I'm going to figure
out diets. But his diet was, uh, specifically for American males.
He said, We're gonna look at the ideal level of protein, carbohydrate, fat,
and mineral matter, specifically ash that these growing boys need. Yeah,
(10:43):
Noll's making the perfect face for that. Yeah. He said
that went in at the end, like as a byproduct
of Yeah. Well, I mean I know that ash can
be a good like nutrient rich thing for for looking
for soil. Yeah, of course, are you not eating enough ash? I?
I don't know. I've never really thought about it as
(11:05):
as part of my my nutritional portfolio until this exact minute. Um.
But specifically, we're talking also about minerals and vitamins like iron,
vitamin C, calcium and all of that stuff. And as
we know and discussed in the serial episode, some of
these things became kind of like buzz terms, you know,
like your daily allowance, you know of vitamins, not allowance. Uh,
(11:27):
it's it's a necessity. You want x amount of vitamin
C and UH and calcium in your daily diet, and you, boy,
how do you can achieve that with one bowl of
Captain crunch or ash or ash. Uh. Yeah, it's weird
because he says ash. We think because like like you
were saying nol at this point in time, there were
(11:49):
a lot of specific minerals of vitamins that science didn't
know about that and they hadn't been able to pin
down those culprits. Uh. So, well, it's fast forward. The
first complete U s D. A Food Guide Food for
Young Children, is written by a nutritionist named Carolyn Hunt,
and it comes out in nineteen sixteen. I think this
(12:11):
is where we start to see the predecessors of the
food pyramid. Yeah, like instead of you know, talking about
minerals that we're talking more about food stuffs like milk
and meats, cereals, grains, pasta, you know, vegetables and fruits,
fats and fatty foods, sugars and other foods that are
(12:31):
high in sugar um. The food guide that we're in
question here was followed up in nineteen seventeen by Specific
dietary recommendations. And I think this is maybe when we
started really hearing these referred to as food groups, because
that's also a thing I remember from health class growing up,
is talking about how important the food groups are. Yeah. Yeah,
(12:52):
it's this is where we were taught that foods rolling
clicks and you have to be care of all which
clicks you mess with. Uh. Yeah, the there are these
five groups, right. Um, there's a little bit of change
over time, but basically they're the same groups that will
later end up in the food pyramid. In nineteen seventeen,
(13:14):
the very next year, there is a publication called how
to Select Foods and it is full of dietary recommendations
based on this five food group theory. In the nineteen thirties,
of course, the depression comes along. Life is absolutely terrible
for most people living in the country, and a lot
(13:36):
of people are trying to survive intense economic hardship, a
lot of privation. You know, you could say, hey, here
are the food groups all the live long day, but
the reality is a lot of people can't afford to
eat healthy and this definitely influenced diet advice. Yeah, I mean,
they maybe wouldn't have access to certain types of produce
(13:58):
or they wouldn't have access you he knows what we
would maybe considered today certain areas being called food deserts.
But this is sort of twofold that there was like
a lot of non arable lands, you know, because of
the dust bowl and agriculture becoming increasingly difficult because of
droughts and in certain parts of the country. So yeah,
you literally wouldn't have access to that. So it was
all about just kind of getting your calories in so
(14:21):
that you could survive. I mean, I always think of, uh,
you know, there's a really heartbreaking scene in the Grapes
of Wrath where a grown adult is I think, like
drinking breast milk from from somebody, you know, because that
was the only way they could actually get sustenance. It's yeah,
it's the harrowing, right, and this is where we start
(14:44):
to see food economist Wait and so nine getting very
terrible time. Hazel Steebling is a food economist working for
the U. S d A. And she develops food plans
that are specifically meant to be cheap. There they're supposed
(15:05):
to be um tiered in terms of cost. This will
help you shop for food, you know, or this is,
you know, if you look at it as you get
to the lower cost there's an emphasis on being able
to grow your own vegetables right to to avoid having
to spend money you don't have at the grocery store,
(15:26):
and they give you twelve major food groups and it's
like a week by week thing. It's it's pretty interesting.
I've seen um similar stuff honestly, in like survival advice,
like here's the basic food you need to survive in
the woods when you're camping. Well, because a lot of
this stuff, you know, at the end of the day
(15:48):
is a luxury, you know, to to be able to
choose to eat healthy and to have a variety of
food stuffs in your diet as opposed to just like
eating neutral loaf for some sort of like bar that
just gives you, you know, the bare essentials of what
a human body needs to survive. Oh and you know
what we got. We put our cards before our fats here.
(16:12):
Sorry everybody. Uh. The U s d A is is
the short name for the United States Department of Agriculture.
Just the case that isn't clear if everybody thought we
were saying, you know, the uniform stressful diet of uniform
stressful diet adherents. No, it's it's agriculture anyway. So World
(16:33):
War two starts. We're out of the depression, but now
there's a huge war and countries are all across the
board kind of trying to keep their citizens healthy and
give them good advice while also knowing that everybody is
having a tough time. Again, this is the era of
(16:54):
war rationing. Right. In some parts of the world, you
have coupons that allow you to buy stuff and only
certain amounts. Had a McCloud in writing for Smoky Mountain
News and you found this one. Max notes that the
food pyramid, as we recognize it, was born out of hardship,
(17:14):
and you can tell, Hannah argues, because there are some
things that are just confusing the way that they're grouped.
That's right. The US Department of Agriculture U s d
A released the Basic Seven Food Guide, so we're down
from twelve now to seven, with the tagline US needs
a strong eat the Basic seven every day. And this
(17:37):
grouping actually wasn't awful, like it had a little bit
of of nuts and bolts kind of sense behind it.
Raw cabbage somehow, though, ended up in the oranges, tomatoes,
and grapefruit section, um, instead of in the vegetables or
the green and yellow vegetables section, which is a little odd.
Also in the same way that I think it's odd
(17:58):
that that a tomato is a fruit, although it is
that for scientific reasons, because of the seeds and all
of that. Yeah, you just thinking about that first thing
in the morning. You're like, I could have my orange juice,
I can have like grape fruit juice. I could have
my cabbage juice. Mmmmmmm. I can't wait till someone figures
out a cereal that combines grain and cabbage. Well, if
(18:20):
I'm not mistaken, cabbage was also a very hardy crop
and uh and very you know, um contained a lot
of those essential vitamins and minerals and calories. So I
mean it was you know, here in Atlanta, we've got
a neighborhood called Cabbage Town and that's because a lot
of farmers would sell their cabbages there during times of
economic difficulty, and it was something that the average folks
(18:43):
could afford. Is that really white cabbage towns name that?
Oh that's cool? Hey, Like, can I get the more?
You know? Perfect? Thank you, thank you? Noel. I learned
something today. Yes, the idea is. The idea here is
(19:05):
to incentivize people also to eat things that they might
not normally eat, so that we can get around some
of the constraints of war. The very first quote unquote
food pyramid doesn't really come from World War two, though,
it comes from the nineteen seventies and another time of
(19:28):
economic hardship, not in the US but in Sweden. Here
in the US, a lot of people see Sweden as
a pretty expensive country, and it is in some ways.
So they were fighting high food prices back in the seventies,
and so the government went to the National Board of
Health and Welfare and said, all right, we need your
(19:51):
help with this. We need to help people navigate this
runaway inflation, these food prices. So this group, this National Board,
the Social Steels, they say, all right, here's how we're
going to divide this. We're gonna talk about basic and
supplementary foods. Basic foods are the things you have to
eat to survive. Supplementary foods are things that provide vitamins
(20:15):
and minerals that your basic stuff doesn't. Right, Um, So,
so you know, supplementary, just like the word uh means
typically things that are not absolute necessities, you know, to survival,
perhaps maybe a little bit more of a luxury. But
it was Anne britt aggn stature agg Stator who worked
(20:36):
for the cooperative fur Bundit, which is a Swedish coop
union um representing retail and grocery workers. It was her
who pushed the idea to the next level, uh and
gave it kind of a bit of a codification. So
this essentially took the ideas that the social Steelson had
(20:58):
about basic food groups to the next level by developing
the idea of a proportional model, you know, sort of
a hierarchy something of a triangle, you know, with the
most important stuff on the bottom, and then as it
progressed and tapered to a point, you'd see the less
uh necessary foods represented. So it was kind of almost
(21:20):
like a hierarchy of needs kind of situation where it's like, Okay,
you're fine if you just stick to these big ones
on the bottom, and as it goes upward, you're not
gonna die from from malnutrition if you maybe don't have
enough of these. Yeah, and this really is a master shrow.
This is a great idea because most people in the
(21:42):
world then as now are not nutritionists us included. So
having that visual representation makes the information uh hate the
accidental wordplay here easy to digest. You know, you can
look at it and you can your brain can instaly
intuitively understand I should have more of this, I should
(22:04):
have less of this. It's not perfect, but it's a
really cool idea and props to you on a brit
So the Swedish public learns about this shortly thereafter. It's
published in an annual magazine by that Swedish cooperative union
and the headline is good wholesome food at reasonable prices.
(22:27):
They also had a little bit of tention. At this point.
The Swedish government tried to distance itself from the pyramid
to introduce something called a dietary circle, the old circle
versus the pyramid and arguments to this day. Yeah yeah.
And the the thing was this circular model could show
(22:52):
you what foods were important, but unlike the pyramid, it
didn't explicitly show you how much of each type of
food should be consumed. Anyway, this was the first of
its kind and it was a triangle or a pyramid
in shape, but it was not not the one that
(23:13):
you might know and love from the US. There were
some very different aspects of these the one from the US,
the westernized model. It's different not so much because there
was a better understanding nutrition health over time. It's like
we tease the beginning, this model was affected by lobbyists,
(23:34):
by interest groups in big agriculture, in the food industry. Uh,
they were through willing to throw millions of dollars into
how their products were represented here. Well, Ben, you might
have a different perspective or more nuanced, but like the U.
S Department of Agriculture, it is a regulatory body, but
(23:55):
it was originally, you know, established to promote agriculture and
to make sure that farmers and farms had what they
needed because this is an important part of the you know,
um economic portfolio of the country, not to mention um,
making sure that citizens had what they needed to survive
and to eat. So it makes sense that they would
(24:18):
kind of from the start have been in bed with
big business rep interest that represented agriculture when we moved
from like a more agrarian economy to something that that
was really represented by more corporate kind of structures. Yeah,
and you know that's well said. And also I would
(24:38):
add that we don't want to demonize these groups entirely.
The reality is they need to have they need to
exist because this way you can enforce some uniform standards, right,
some safety practices, some higiatic stuff there. There is a
good reason for them to be there. But also they
are private industries, so their primary thing is going to
(25:01):
be profit year over year. The U s d A's
Food Guide comes out UH mid nineteen eighties. It's called
a Pattern for Daily Food Choices UH and it had
been used for a while, but people didn't know a
lot about it. So it's when the eggheads in the
(25:22):
US decide, all right, we're gonna we're gonna do what
the Swedish did. We're gonna make a graphic presentation of
our food guide, and we're gonna try to easily show
people three things. Variety, how much different stuff should I eat? Proportionality,
how much of it should I eat in comparison to
other groups? And moderation when should have pumped the brakes
(25:45):
on all that sweet sweet sugar. And they also arrived
at a pyramid. It just sounds good, it sounds official,
it sounds like a plan, but it's also pr because
on the one hand. Yeah, they're putting out these guys
that they have plausible deniability when they also green light
soda machines and schools. You know what I mean. Now,
(26:08):
I mean I like a Coca Cola Classic as a treat,
but I mean, I you know, kind of cut that
of my life in favor of you know, less caloric
sugary fizzy drinks. You know, I'm coffee, but I like
the you know, lacroise of the world. And obviously we're
living in the time now where sugary drinks have a
bad rap, you know, for good reasons. So a lot
(26:29):
of those companies have had to diversify and do more
like kind of you know, uh, low calorie fizzy water
kind of alternatives. Yeah, this is um, this is a
good point. No, not everybody is a fan of Laka
or Montane or whatever, but the lacroix. But the you know,
I like, what's the old joke, the lemon flavored saltzer
(26:52):
water sounds like you're walking down a hallway and someone
in another room goes lemon like like this, it's more
for the fizz. Yeah, I've heard described as somebody shouting
the name of a fruit from the next room. My
girlfriend thinks that, uh like flavored lacroix and stuff taste
like television static. I don't. Yeah, especially the citrus ones
(27:15):
for some reason, it sparks me Snastasia. Have you guys
had the lemon cello le cello? Yes, it's I don't like,
it's way too much. I mean, I I like just
plain soda water, So like if I had one with
a little bit of lemon, that's good to me. But
like that's like, oh god, what is this? Yeah, I'm
I'm like, give me a good iced coffee, you know, uh,
(27:38):
And I'll take a I'll take as soda as a
treat because I associate them with going to the movies,
you know what I mean, that's where you get the
popcorn in the soda and make the bad food decisions.
But do you ever put Eminem's in your popcorn? That's
the thing people apparently do. Yeah, I do it all
the time, right on. I mean what I eat popcorn?
I guess I didn't know that you were a monstrosity. Man,
(27:59):
m It's is good. I like Reese's pieces, and a
lot of people just realized Reese's pieces or Reese's pieces.
I like to call them contain no chocolate. It's basically
just just peanut butter with a thin candy shell. And
the only reason they're so famous is because Eminem's didn't
work out for Et the Extraterrestrial. They're supposed to be
(28:19):
Eminem's originally product placement. The hell of a drug product placement, baby. Anyway,
this show is brought to you by Josta. All Right,
so the Food Guide Pyramid, let's might surprise people who
have grown up with it in your entire life. The
(28:41):
Food Guide Pyramid wasn't released until nineteen ninety two, which
really blew my mind right to me, it's just something
that I always have known. I just assume that it
has been around. It seems like a sixties thing, doesn't
it kind of even design. Yeah, so there may be
things where the sweeter model was presented in some textbooks
(29:02):
or something beforehand. But the Official Food Guide Pyramid, as
the u S understands it, comes out supposed to help
you visualize, uh, the proportion, proportions and moderation you should
be using from those dietary guidelines. It shows you the
name names of the food groups and some basically clip
art of what they look like like. Here is a
(29:24):
loaf of bread. Oh that's a fish. Uh. And they're separated,
you know, they're segregated throughout the pyramid. You can see,
um the variety in those pictures, the little icons of
what kind of food counts as a grain or a
bread or a post or whatever. Then you can see
proportionality because they'll give you a rough size in the
(29:47):
pyramid and then the list servings even though you know,
again as we know, serving sizes or wildly misrepresented here
in in US grocery stores. Yeah, I mean, like I said,
if you know where to look, you can get whatever
the U s D A appropriate serving size is for
a given product. But a lot of people don't dig
(30:07):
that deep and assume that, like I can just eat
the whole pot pie or eat the whole you know,
lean cuisine or whatever it might be. But usually if
you get a small bag of chips, even that's like
two serving sizes, even though you you would assume then
it's this is meant to be consumed in one sitting.
This is one serving because it comes in a small bag, right,
And restaurants don't help either. That's the thing that continually
(30:30):
baffles my friends who are not from the United States.
A lot of times when people visit the United States,
the first thing they clock is the wide variety of
food and the fact that so much food is thrown
at you. Free refills are not a thing, and a
lot of other parts of the world, but that that's
always amazing to me as well. You know, when when
(30:52):
I go through phases where I don't go to a
bunch of restaurants, I'm still continually amazed when I realize
almost any main core so I order is like two meals. Yeah,
and if you go to like a fine dining place,
for example, you might bulk at the serving size or
like the amount of food on the plate, but if
it's done well and it tastes good, you'll probably end
(31:14):
up getting the sample more small plates and small kind
of things and not walk away hungry, but also not
walk away gorged, which I think, to me is the
perfect meal experience. You know, I want to taste different things,
have an enjoyable culinary experience, but not feel like Logi
and horrible afterwards. Back because I see your eyes lighting
(31:35):
up here. Yes, yes, yes, as Nol and Ben both No,
I've spent many days tending tending a tending a table
or or tending a bar. And I remember I worked
at a tapas restaurant at one point, and you would
have like guys, like guys come in, you know, twenties,
thirties and stuff like that, and they order their food
and they look their plate and they'll be just like,
what is this. I'm like, it's topas mat It's supposed
(31:57):
to be really small. You're supposed to get like five
of the They're like, I thought it was topless. Where's
the poll? You know, we actually worked on a concept
of a place called topless tapas where all of us
were topless. I mean it wasn't It wasn't not a
sexual way. It's an artistic way. Every everyone everyone's topless,
you know, like the cooks, the customers, everyone. Well, okay,
(32:21):
the genius tapas is uh someone saying, hey, what if
we just charged eight more dollars for this appetizer? Actually,
I'm I'm being rude because that's us tapas. Tapas where
they're from in Spain, are supposed to come free at
wine bars to keep you drinking wine. That's where tapas
(32:41):
come from, and their association got americanized a little bit.
Tapas places can be delicious. It's just that Bill sneaks
up on you. That Bill will come for you at
the end. Uh. And most of my friends who love
tapas love it because they go on they go on
dates where some one else pays at the top of
his restaurant. If I'm ever in a situation like that,
(33:04):
my friends, I'm gonna come back radicalized. I'm gonna be like,
oh my god, have you guys heard of tapas? It's amazing?
What about stroop Waffles? You guys know about stroop waffles
in this incredible delicacy from you know, my travels, my
backpacking travels. They're not bad with coffee, are you? Are
(33:24):
you a stroop waffle guy? I get him at Rufford
Highway farmer's work. That's where you get more variety. But
the joke is as they just dude that I follow
on TikTok made a funny video where he did a
song about some kind of brow e dude like like saying, hey,
if you heard of stroop waffles? I discovered them in
my travels abroad and scanned Dnavia. But the joke is
(33:44):
that you get him at Starbucks and they've been there
for you know, years. Yeah, yeah, okay, I got you.
Well this this guy might be a little confused if
he's trying to figure out where stroop raffle waffle fits
in to the food pyramid. And that's because the food
pyramid is still kind of imperfect. You would know that, uh,
(34:06):
the very top of the pyramid is more a category
of things that can be added to foods. So candy
is high in sugar, that exists in the top part.
That the part you're supposed to use spared lee. Uh,
foods that are high and fat might fit in there too,
maybe think just some really good fatty barbecue brisket. But
(34:30):
to your point, ben, fats have gotten maligned, you know,
convenient by the sugar industry. So there's this push and
pull between all of these different interests, you know, in
terms of like which is the good thing and which
is the bad thing, and how can we kind of
spin it one way or the other. But there are
fats and certain amounts of fats that are good you
know or quote unquote good good fats, And it's all
(34:53):
about balance at the end of the day. That is
irrespective of some sort of like pr line because you know,
we know and we've done this from the start. This
really is more about protecting these interests and representing them
and covering the butts of the U. S d A,
who also do things behind closed doors that are not
(35:13):
very good for, you know, the health of citizens of
the United States. I'm so glad you're saying that there's
a reason for the structure of the pyramid. Max to
this with some like unsolved mysteries, musics. There it is.
(35:36):
It was bought and paid for. According to Louise Lights,
one of the nutritionists who worked on making the Food
Pyramid for the U. S d A, the original version
the one nutritionist came up with looked at heck of
a lot different from the one that ended up being published.
The Office of the Secretary of Agriculture altered wording to
(35:57):
emphasize processed food over fresh and whole foods, and to
downplay things like lean meat or low fat dairy. They
also changed the servings, which is one of the most
important parts of the equation. They upped the grains and
they lowered the servings of fruit and veg Right. Well,
let's also not forget that the history of this thing
(36:19):
really was one of economic scarcity. You know, of of
of issues where like what's the most affordable thing, and
that's why we have a bit of a health crisis
or you know, I mean, I think it's mainly heading
in the right direction now, but with things like you know,
processed foods and and fast food and all of that
stuff that is very limited lee regulated, you know, I mean,
(36:42):
it's all about freedom of choice here in the United States.
It's not necessarily about how can we make sure that
people are making the right choices so that we don't
have to you know, cover their diabetes treatment and have
private insurance rates skyrocket, whereas in other countries, yeah, you
might have slightly limited, more limited choices, but it's also
(37:03):
more affordable to get healthcare, and like everybody gets it
because there's more of a culture of moderation in other
countries that doesn't really exist in this country because we're
a country who's based on free market economy and choices
and therefore advertising a k a. Essentially um propaganda, you know,
(37:25):
that's making people feel good about eating these fatty, nostalgic
kind of foods. You know. Yeah, this podcast brought to
you by Fatty Nugs, just pure breaded nuggets of fat.
A Tyson production. I don't think fatty nugs or a
thing yet. I think it's something different. I think that's uh,
(37:47):
that's different. That's a different type of agriculture here. It is.
So you fast forward. Everybody knows that are problems with this.
You fast forward. In two thousand and five, the food
pyramid in the US is revised and they're trying to
correct some things here. They get rid of some things
that could have influenced people towards bad decisions. They get
(38:10):
a redesign, and people have problems with it. People have
problems that would seem weirdly specific unless you're in the industry.
For instance, the Potato Boys, which is are just it's
not a weird cartoonish Irish gang from the eight hundreds.
It's not from Gang of of New York. It's a
street term for lobbyists. The Potato Lobbying group. They were
(38:31):
super mad because they felt that potatoes were de emphasized
in the new graphics. You know, we've given you so
much money, what are you doing here? And then they
also said, look, if you want good nutrition advice with
this thing, you can't just see it on the pyramid.
You have to go to the U S d A website,
(38:52):
because the pyramid itself now doesn't give you any information
about serving importion sizes. It's just about proportion of food
groups to each other. Yeah, and you know, you think,
to the discerning consumer, this wouldn't be an issue. You
could go and you know, do your own homework. But no,
when it comes to graphics and things that are presented
(39:13):
to the general population, simple is the key, you know,
and dumbing it down is the way is the name
of the game. So if you're one of these industries
and you're looking at the official you know, image that's
being put out and your product isn't on there represented
in the actual picture, that's a real problem, you know,
(39:34):
because no one typically is going to look past the cover,
you know, the of the book they're they're not or
like the blurb. But right, it's all about appearances because
by large, most consumers aren't going to be savvy in
that way and aren't going to look behind the scenes
to actually see what else is there. Yeah, yeah, and
(39:55):
so it's still an imperfect system. That's why in two
thousand eleven, the U s d A released My Plate
like my Space, but it's a plate never Yeah, I
think it was past our time. Uh, and this just said, uh,
let's think not in terms of what you should eat
per day, but what you should eat per meal. And
(40:17):
the plate is split up into four basically equal parts,
with a side of dairy beside the plate because the
milk lobby, the dairy lobbies still have a lot of
a lot of cow juice juice. But also this makes
me think of, like with more vegan lifestyles and vegetarian lifestyles,
that doesn't really jibe with the with the food pyramid
(40:40):
or with any of this stuff, because it seems, you know,
on the surface that you're leaving out all of these
important sections potentially right or that, or that it's like
it's weighted incorrectly, you know. Yeah, And then you can
also see that this is a continuing conversation. Something like
this has to just it's good that it exists, but
(41:02):
it's not the be all and all solution. Maybe we
wrap up today's show by talking about some other countries
around the world who have taken their own shot at this.
I'm particularly impressed with China's because Belgium and China both
hit two big things that the US Food Pyramid forgot
(41:25):
well Belgium first of all, called it what Max said
it should have been called from the start, which is
the food triangle, because it's true, a a pyramid is
a three dimensional object, and and it really is. It's triangle,
but pyramid just sounds sex here. I do love that
China did the lean into the whole, like you know,
um structural aspect of it by calling it the food Pagoda,
(41:47):
which is sort of like a Chinese pyramid in some ways.
I guess, I don't know it's a structure, but they Okay.
So the really smart thing that they do in the
Food guide Pagoda is they recommend the big miss equation,
which every nutritionist will tell you if you want to
live a healthy lifestyle, A big part of it is
what you eat. But the other big part is moderate
(42:11):
regular exercise. So they include recommended physical activities. Uh something
works out to being like walking six thousand steps a day. Uh.
And then Belgium they put water in the food pyramid.
How do we forget about water? How do we water?
We haven't said that one time this whole episode, shouting
(42:32):
out like three different sodas three different times. Yeah, water
is is crucial. I mean water as We've talked about
many times on stuff they don't want you to know
is probably going to be one of the resources that's
going to cause serious division in terms of the availability
of it, who controls it. And that's because you can
(42:53):
survive without eating food for I think longer than you
can without drinking water. I believe that's that's accurate. Yes,
that is accurate. If you are out in terrible sideways situation,
one of the first things you want to secure where
is some kind of access to potable water, especially if
you think you're going to be stuck there. It's just
(43:15):
a terrible way to go. And it is kind of
a bummer that we have to think about this stuff
in somewhat dystopian terms sometimes. But let's go back to
the start of all of this, which was the Great Depression,
which is about as mad Max as our country has
ever become. You know, hey, you speaking of Max mad
Max just in terms of you know, Thunderdome and like
a arid waste land that we you know, have to
(43:37):
fight for our lives in order to survive. In Mad Max.
What I would argue is the best Mad Max movie,
uh Fury Road. It's all about control over the water
supply aqua Coldah. Man, that's good. There's a I can't
wait for the uh the next furiosis. Yeah, so here
(43:59):
we go, folks, the food pyramid. It's a good idea
that is also partially affected by conspiracy. Uh. And if
you are more on the technical side of shapes, then
you will also readily admit this is in fact a
triangle unless you have a defense for why it should
(44:19):
be called the pyramid. We'd love to hear it. Find
us at Ridiculous Historians on Facebook. Thanks of course to
our superproducer, Mr Max Williams. Uh noel, I just started.
This makes me, honestly, this makes him want to thank
a bunch of foods. I know I'm not supposed to eat.
Thanks to bacon on everything, you know what I mean.
Thanks to that fatty brisket. Throw some chocolate in there,
(44:41):
you know what I mean? Oh man, Yeah, fatty nugs.
Yeah yeah, give me a six pack of those or whatever,
six piece fatty nuggets. Indeed huge, Thanks to Jonathan Strickling,
the quister. He's gonna be back around and talk about
something one of these days. I mean, like people, at
this point, I think we're totally full of it that
(45:01):
he has died and that we're just sort of keeping
his legacy alive, promising for him to one day return.
But it'll happen. It's like we were at the We're
at the lawyer's office and he's reading the will and
he and part of his dying wish was for us
to continually act like he was about to be back
on the show. That's really sweet. What's a Boogeyman without
(45:23):
the promise that he might one day appear, you know.
Thanks of course to Christopher aciotas thinks Yves Jeff Co,
Thanks to Alex Williams. Uh No, this is this is
a fun one man. I'm you know what I'm I'm
so thankful we get to do this. Yeah. It was
also a good follow up to our serial series are
Serial Serial If you will, and I think we will.
(45:45):
We'll see you next time. Books. For more podcasts for
my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Some
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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