Healthy Diet Pyramid

Follow our Healthy Diet Pyramid to experience optimum health and brain development. Here we dispel myths surrounding the so called healthy food pyramid and recommend a time-tested healthy eating pyramid.

What is a Healthy Diet Pyramid? Parents all over the United States are confused about what they should be feeding their children to ensure they have optimum health and brain development. Let's talk about what you should be eating and why you are confused.

Why You are Likely Confused About What to Eat

We all understand the importance of a healthy diet, but figuring out what we should be eating and what comprises a healthy diet pyramid is very confusing for most people. Unless you have spent hundreds of hours reading all of the latest scientific studies, you are bound to be confused! Why?

The problem is that there are so many conflicting claims about what constitutes a healthy diet

Proponents of everything from Atkins to all-raw veganism to many other dietary schemes claim that theirs is the proven pathway to good health. How are we to make sense of all these conflicting claims in order to choose a diet that works for ourselves and our families? And not only in this generation but in the generations to come.

Note: If you don't believe us, do a Google search for healthy eating pyramid and healthy food pyramid and see how many of the different listings are from food processors or assertions backed by food processors.

Good health has to do not only with how we feel today, but how we feel throughout our lifespan and the health of the future generations we produce.

Click here to jump straight to our recommendations about What To Eat as part of our healthy Diet Pyramid.

The Role of Advertising, the Media and the Government in Creating Confusion

Think about how many people’s food choices are controlled by television advertising instead of solid research. Think about how vulnerable children are to advertisements showing their favorite TV hero eating this breakfast cereal or that pop-tart. Children don't develop their critical thinking abilities until much later in life.

Think about how many parents figure that these products must be OK for their children because they are “fortified” and the USDA’s dietary pyramid is displayed prominently on the box to assure them that yes, this product qualifies as a great way to get the 5 servings of grain their child needs every day. How many parents take a look at the "healthy food pyramid" and really take the time and ask, How can 30 grams of sugar be good for my child even if it is accompanied by some synthetic vitamins?

The Need for Convenience and Lack of Time for Research Contributes to the Confusion

Think of how many parents are clogging the fast food drive ins so that they can get food into their children between as they drive between events in their activity packed days. Think about how few parents take a step back and think, Why are so many of my children’s friends sick? Could this choice be contributing to my own child’s health, emotional and developmental struggles?

Click here to jump straight to our recommendations about What To Eat as part of our healthy Diet Pyramid.

How Misguided is the Majority of the Population About What They Should be Eating?

Caron Simontacci, the author of CrazyMakers: How the Food Industry is Destroying Our Brains and Harming Our Children puts it best: “When I warn lecture attendees that virtually everything written about nutrition in the mainstream press is wrong and potentially harmful, they stare at me in disbelief. Learn about the architecture of the brain, though, and you’ll discover what is requires for optimum health. We can start over and learn from nature instead of trying to teach it.”

Another great tidbit of information about the power of advertizing from CrazyMakers: "The fictitious person named Betty Crocker was first created in 1921 as a pen name for General Mills’ consumer response department and, under her well-recognized image, turned several generation of Americans away from their traditional foods and toward highly processed, less-nutritious foods." Interestingly a whole generation of mothers were convinced that margarine was healtier than butter due to another advertising campaign when there was never a study that demonstrated that margarine was healtier. Quite the opposite, hydrogenated vegetable oils – like margarine- are now scientifically proven to be the main contributors to heart disease, NOT butter.

Since 1980 when the USDA first released its Dietary Guidelines for Americans, the government working hand in hand with the food processing giants has been trying to convince us that a low-fat, grain and cereal based diets are healthiest for us. Millions of Americans have tried to eat a healthy diet according to the USDA’s guidelines and have become overweight, obese and sick in the process.

Click here to jump straight to our recommendations about What To Eat as part of our healthy Diet Pyramid.

The Current USDA Dietary Guidelines are Not Based on Science

Yes, you read correctly, the official U.S. government diet is not based on science; it was designed to promote the products of commodity agriculture. The government diet, based on carbohydrates, has led to an epidemic of obesity, learning disorders and malnutrition in the U.S. It is nota healthy diet pyramid.

The original USDA Dietary guidelines were based on the as-yet-unproven theory that reducing dietary fat would reduce heart disease, diabetes and obesity. Since there were developed science has proven time and time again that this premise is false, but when scientific evidence contradicts the USDA’s definition of healthy, the USDA ignores the science. Why shouldn’t they?

There are no consequences to the USDA if their guidelines don’t work while at the same time, there are huge rewards to the policy makers for encouraging the consumption of enormously profitable, “fortified” and “enriched” products that are virtually devoid of nutrition.

Click here to jump straight to our recommendations about What To Eat as part of our healthy Diet Pyramid.

Millions of People, Especially Children, are Not Getting Their Nutritional Needs Met

Studies clearly show that by following the current guidelines, most people are not even getting the minimum nutrition their body needs from the food they eat. This is most damaging to children who have higher nutritional needs due to their rapidly growing bodies.

Obesity has Skyrocketed

Ironically, at the same time we are not getting the minimum nutrition we need, the percentage of population that is considered obese has skyrocketed from 15% in 1980 to over 35% today. Childhood illness has skyrocketed. Attention disorders abound.

Click here to jump straight to our recommendations about What To Eat as part of our healthy Diet Pyramid.

USDA Guidelines Benefit Food Manufacturers and Hurt Farmers

The importance of a healthy diet has been sacrificed in the name of profits. The USDA’s primary goal isn’t to keep you healthy. Its primary goal is to increase the profits of the food manufacturers. Due to USDA policies, food prices and production at the farm level are flat. Meanwhile, the food processing industry continues to grow and demands more cheap grain and cereal products resulting in an emphasis on massive monoculture farming that depletes our topsoil and poisons our rivers with pesticide and fertilizer run-off. A “tofu dog” is not just bad for you, it's also bad for the farmer and the environment.

Thanks to the USDA policies, cheap grain and cereal-based foods are everywhere and are marketed an important part of a healthy diet. During the past thirty years, the calorie increase in our diet has come almost entirely from grain-based foods.

Just as processing brings profit to food manufacturers, Traditional foods, those that are in their most natural state, unadulterated and unrefined put more money into the pockets of farmers. Unfortunately, in terms of total profits to be made both here and overseas, processing and packaging are much more profitable to the policymakers than farming.

Are you feeling as frustrated and mislead as we were before we started doing some research? Good. Now let's talk about what you SHOULD be eating.

Our Healthy Diet Pyramid

Using common sense you may expect that eating the real, whole, nutrient dense, nourishing foods that the human race has enjoyed for thousands of years is likely to be the healthiest for us because genetically, we are adapted to eat them. This is a proven healthy diet pyramid. For more information about the benefits of traditional and nutrient dense diets read Healthy Diets for Kids .

Instead of grain and bread comprising the majority of your daily food intake, we suggest that the majority of your food intake should be made up of protein, vegetables and healthy fats.

This means that the majority of your food consumption should be coming from meat, dairy and fresh vegetables. Whole, raw, organic fruit and berries should be eaten sparingly since they contain a lot of sugar. The best way to eat fruit is raw or minimally cooked as a topping for homemade porridge. Grains should also be eaten sparingly and be properly prepared to neutralize the enzyme inhibitors. Grains naturally contain enzyme inhibitors that prevent them from sprouting prematurely. By soaking or sprouting your grains you neutralize these enzyme inhibitors which make grains difficult to digest.

What You SHOULD be Eating

What You SHOULD NOT be Eating

Our healthy diet pyramid page would not be complete without a discussion about what not to consume. We recommend you never consume:

• Trans fatty acids (e.g. hydrogenated oils)
• Junk food
• Egg Substitutes
• Commercial Fried Foods
• Sugar
• White Flour
• Soft Drinks
• Caffeine
• Alcohol
• Cigarettes
• Drugs (even prescription drugs if possible)

Recommended Reading

Probably the best book we have found about diet, nutrition and a healthy diet pyramid for children is The Crazy Makers: How the Food Industry is Destroying Our Brains and Harming our Children by Carol Simontacchi. Our second favorite book is the enduring classic work on how what we eat shapes us, for better or worse, titled Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston A. Price, D.D.S. We encourage you to purchase both.

There are many great articles on the Weston A Price website about diet and nutrition including:

• Modernizing Your Diet with Traditional Foods by Jen Allbritton, CN
• Traditional Diets for Healthy Children by Sally Fallon Morell

What Would You Like To Do Next?

Read more about the Importance of a Healthy Diet, especially for babies, children and nursing moms.

Read more about Traditional, Nutrient Dense and Organic Diets as well as the importance of consuming unrefined food.

See some Healthy Crock Pot Recipes that can make meal preparation easy at the same time you provide your family nutritious food.

Read tips for encouraging your kids to eat healthy food (coming soon)

Read about Fun Activities to do with your kids.

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