USDA Food Pyramid: Recipe for Health or Chronic Disease?

Everyone knows that there's an epidemic of obesity and diabetes going on these days.  And everyone knows these conditions have grave health consequences but nevertheless are largely preventable.  The catch is that you must take charge of your own health in order to prevent them.  That takes self-control, effort and determination.  Hard enough to do, even if no one is undermining you.

Despite their fine intentions, I think it can be said that the USDA is one of the parties undermining your attempt to stay healthy. The reason: their "food pyramid," which advises that everyone eat six to eleven daily servings of bread, cereal, rice and pasta.  People could be forgiven for thinking that the USDA thinks you should eat a lot of carbs.

Dr. David Seaman, D.C. is an estimable physician and health scholar.  He has written a series of articles that indicate that all those carbs push your body towards very bad health in a number of ways.  The thrust of his thinking is that all those carbs turn your body into a biochemical factory for the production of the chemicals that cause inflammation.  And that low-level but chronic increase in inflammation is perhaps the main factor in most chronic diseases including atherosclerosis, diabetes, and even Alzheimer's.

In addition, Dr. Seaman says that all those "heart-healthy" polyunsaturated oils you now use to replace the sat-fats, also push your body's biochemical factory towards creating inflammation chemicals.  Not that the oils are bad per se, but that they should be eaten in a one-to-one ratio with omega-3 oils.  The typical American diet is weighted closer to 20-1 towards the omega-6's (such as corn oil.)  According to Dr. Seaman, this is a recipe for chronic disease caused by chronic low-level inflammation.

His articles are very readable and fascinating.  Here's a link to them; I heartily suggest that you read them all.

www.chiroweb.com/mpacms/dc/article.php?id=15409

UPDATE:  Here's a New York Times Magazine article that reviews the evidence and comes up with the same conclusion.  It's from 2002, a long time ago.  But from the number of ads for statins, you'd never think there was any doubt about the so-called "Fat-Cholesterol Hypothesis."

ANOTHER UPDATE:  Gary Taubes, the author of the above article, has written another excellent article, for the NYT, this time about sugar, but really, it's about the same thing.