According to the
Encyclopedia Britannica website for the US food pyramid, "
The food pyramid has its origins not in recommendations for a balanced diet but in food shortages. The USDA released the Basic 7 food guide in 1943 to help U.S. citizens cope with food rationing during World War II. As its name indicates, this guide divided foods into seven groups, among them bread and cereals, several covering fruits and vegetables, and meat and poultry."
Back in 1977, Senator George McGovern and the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition (SSCON) were asked to figure out why so many Americans were showing up at hospitals with the muscle definition (and often the heart rates) of a Jell-O casserole. Undertaking the most comprehensive study of American dietary habits in history, the SSCON revealed that, despite America's unwavering commitment to lard-assed heart abuse, rates of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease briefly dipped during World War II. After rigorous lab experiments determined that you couldn't Nazi hunt your way to low cholesterol, the committee arrived at a more practical explanation: meat and dairy rations. America got healthier during WWII because they weren't allowed to eat all the beef and cheese they could fit their mouths around.
Figuring that some self-imposed rationing might do some good, the committee drafted a report that urged Americans to "cut red meat and dairy intake drastically." As bad as that news was for American taste buds, it was worse for cattle farmers. Since 1955, they'd been making obscene amounts of money selling the half of the USDA's "four essential food groups" that contained cheeseburgers and milk shakes. Luckily for future manufacturers of scoop-'n'-eat cheesecake and muumuus, by the time the SSCON released their report, they'd made enough money to hire an army of lobbyists. Soon after releasing the report, committee members were told it would need some revisions if they wanted to keep their jobs.
Doing what politicians do best, the SSCON caved. The clear and direct "reduce consumption of meat" became, "Choose meats, poultry and fish that will reduce saturated-fat intake." To ensure that no other senators got any funny ideas about making Americans skinny, the meat and dairy industries spent millions to ensure McGovern's ass got kicked to the curb in the very next election. American waistlines continued expanding, life spans continued shrinking, and nobody even dreamed of pissing off cattle ranchers ever again.
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In 1992, the government decided to take another run at America's rampant ass jigglery, this time designing an official info graphic that showed how many servings of different food groups you get in a day. Just as the four food groups had improved on 1943's Basic Seven, which actually included butter as its own group, the food pyramid took a few steps in the right direction. For instance, it separated fruits and vegetables into their own categories and suggested that both were more essential than the cheese and burger groups. The USDA even created a villain, the tiny tip of the pyramid, fats and oils, which Americans were advised to use sparingly. Having outlined its complex nutritional morality play, the USDA dusted off its hands, sat back, and watched childhood obesity rise every year since.
Again, the government had suffered from a crisis of testicular fortitude. Rather than suggesting that anyone eat less of anything, which could hurt the $500 billion food industry, the pyramid suggested that you eat bad foods less frequently relative to how many good foods you eat. It also followed the SSCON's tradition of blaming the word fats rather than anything you might recognize from your grocery list. Food manufacturers responded by flooding the market with chips and cookies chemically engineered to be "low in fat," giving Americans the green light to eat their way skinny.
Of course, it wasn't all on "the man." The chart gave our fat asses too much wiggle room. Choosing from the items listed in each section, you could eat three cheeseburgers, down two glasses of OJ, three servings of fries (cooked in McDonald's new low-fat lard!), a box of Lucky Charms, and go to bed telling your body it could thank you on your hundredth birthday.
As for those new chemically engineered low-fat miracle foods, studies show no evidence that they have any effect on heart or overall body health. Eleftheria Maratos-Flier, director of obesity research at Harvard's Joslin Diabetes Center says, "For a large percentage of the population, perhaps 30 to 40 percent, low-fat diets are counterproductive. They have the paradoxical effect of making people gain weight."
Nutritionists hold out hope that we might turn a corner in the next fifteen years though, when the costs of airlifting children to school passes the $500 billion mark.
Source:
You Might Be a Zombie and Other Bad News, which is a collection of Cracked.com articles
