LOS ANGELES -- Farewell food pyramid. Government officials are getting ready to dish out nutritional advice to the nation on a more appetizing platter.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is set to unveil a replacement to its much-maligned food pyramid this morning, scrapping the rainbow-striped triangle with a staircase edge in favor of a simple circle designed to evoke a dinner plate.
"That would go a long way to producing something that is actually useful for nutritionists and dietitians in the United States," said James Painter, a food psychologist and registered dietician at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, Ill. The key, he said, is that it would give viewers a quick idea of what their meals should look like when they sit down at the table.
Half of the circle will be filled with fruits and vegetables, another section will feature rice, cereal and other grains, and the rest will contain proteins like chicken and nuts, according to people who have seen the icon. Off to the side, a smaller circle will represent dairy - think of it as a glass of milk or a cup of yogurt.
The federal government has spent decades trying to represent a healthy diet in a simple graphic and adopted the pyramid back in 1992. The product of more than a decade of research, it placed grains at the base, fruits and vegetables in the middle and smaller amounts of dairy and protein toward the top. Sweets and other no-no items appeared at the tip with the admonition to "use sparingly."
Advances in nutrition science and pressure from food producers prompted changes that culminated in 2005's My Pyramid. Six different stripes - representing grains, vegetables, fruits, oils, milk and meats and beans - radiate down from the apex, eliminating what some saw as an overemphasis on grains in the previous design. A stylized stick figure was shown running up stairs on the left slope to convey the importance of exercise. But the icon showed no actual foods and required consumers to go online to get specific information on what they should be eating.
"I call it foodless and useless," said Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University. "It was unteachable. You couldn't explain what the colors stood for."
In its long history of offering nutrition advice to Americans, the USDA has employed circles before - as well as rectangles, triangles and other shapes. Its longest-running icon, in use from 1958 to 1979, consisted of a box with four equal sectors of meat, dairy, grains and fruits and vegetables.
No matter the shape, historically the diagrams had one thing in common, Nestle said: "For the first 50 or 60 years, the food guides promoted eating more of American agricultural products."
Back then, portion control was not an issue. Government officials were more concerned about malnutrition than with chronic diseases linked to being overweight and obese.
Even after portion control entered the equation, the icons weren't always up on the latest nutrition science. For example, the original food pyramid recommended a diet heavy in carbohydrates and made little distinction between healthy whole grains and highly processed items like white bread. The outgoing pyramid continues to lump together all types of oils, though some found in plants and fish are now considered good for the heart while others, like trans-fatty acids, can clog up the arteries and lead to heart attacks and strokes.
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