002: The Food Pyramid: A Nationwide Nutrition Scam Unveiled

In today’s episode of I Call Bullshit, we’re exposing one of the biggest nutritional cons of all time: The Food Pyramid. If you grew up in the ’90s, you probably remember that colorful USDA poster telling us to eat 6-11 servings of grains per day and to avoid fats like they were poison. Turns out, this wasn’t about health – it was about big money and lobbying. The grain, dairy, and meat industries had their hands all over this, and we’re still feeling the effects today. Tune in to find out how corporate interests shaped decades of bad dietary advice, why obesity skyrocketed after its introduction, and what you can do instead.

 

Chapters

00:00 Unveiling the Food Pyramid Scam 07:34 Consequences of the Food Pyramid 10:06 The Shift in Dietary Guidelines 11:22 Lessons from the Food Pyramid Saga 12:27 Outro

 

Key Topics Covered in This Episode:

✅ The real origins of the Food Pyramid and how the USDA’s original version was manipulated by lobbyists. ✅ How Big Wheat, Big Dairy, and Big Meat made sure their products were featured prominently in U.S. dietary guidelines. ✅ The scientific inaccuracies of the pyramid – including how it pushed refined carbs and demonized fats, leading to an obesity crisis. ✅ How the sugar industry ensured that “eat less sugar” never made it onto the Pyramid. ✅ The political conflicts of interest that continue to shape U.S. nutrition policies today. ✅ What updated science says about proper nutrition, and why not all fats are bad. ✅ Actionable tips for building a balanced, evidence-based diet that isn’t influenced by industry lies.

Want to Learn More?

📌 Harvard’s Nutrition Source: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/ 📌 USDA Dietary Guidelines Archive: https://www.dietaryguidelines.gov/ 📌 Marion Nestle’s Blog on Food Politics: https://www.foodpolitics.com/

💬 What do you think? Did you grow up following the Food Pyramid? Have you changed the way you eat since learning how it was influenced by lobbying? Drop your thoughts in the comments, or DM me on Instagram (@icallbswithkb).

📢 Help spread the truth! If you enjoyed this episode, leave a review on Apple Podcasts and share it with someone who still thinks eating white bread every day is a good idea.

Sources & Citations:

1. Nestle, Marion (2002). Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health. University of California Press.

   • Comprehensive breakdown of how food lobbying impacts U.S. dietary guidelines.

2. Light, L. (2004). Fat Politics: The Real Story Behind America’s Obesity Epidemic. Oxford University Press.

   • Luise Light was a former USDA nutritionist who revealed how the original pyramid was altered to favor industry interests.

3. USDA Dietary Guidelines Reports (1992, 2005, 2011).

   • Official government dietary recommendations, including revisions and political influences.

4. Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (2020). The truth about fats and dietary guidelines.

   • Analysis of how fats were misrepresented in early guidelines and how new research contradicts prior claims.

5. National Institute of Health (NIH) Study on Obesity Trends (2021).

   • Examines the link between USDA dietary guidelines and rising obesity rates in the U.S.

6. Wall Street Journal (1995). Did the USDA Pyramid Make Us Fat?

   • Investigative journalism on the fallout from the Food Pyramid’s flawed advice.

7. Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) (2010). Saturated Fat, Sugar, and the Health Crisis: A Reassessment of Dietary Guidelines.

   • Landmark meta-analysis questioning early dietary guidelines that demonized fat

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome back, you beautiful nerds, to I Call Bullshit.

(00:03):
Today, I'm slicing into one of the biggest nutrition scams of our time, the food pyramid.
Yep, that colorful pyramid poster that hung in every 90s classroom, smugly telling us togorge on our six to 11 servings of bread and cereal per day.
What the hell was that about?

(00:24):
Spoiler.
It wasn't about health.
It was about money and lobbying.
So buckle up, we're digging into how the USDA's original food pyramid was influenced moreby big food lobbyists than by actual science.
Get ready for some grainy bullshit, folks.

(00:59):
Picture the 1970s, bell bottoms, disco, and rising fears about heart disease.
The government wanted dietary advice for Americans, and the USDA stepped up to the plate,or rather, the pyramid.
In 1992, they rolled out the official food guide pyramid with great fanfare.
It had carbohydrates as the broad base, breads, cereals, rice, and pasta, six to 11servings a day.

(01:25):
Above that, fruits, two to four.
and veggies, three to five.
Then proteins and dairy and a tiny tip of fats and sweets to " use sparingly".
We all remember this, right?
It looked scientific, but here's the tea.
From day one, the pyramid was built on shaky ground.

(01:45):
You see, USDA nutritionists originally designed a very different pyramid.
In fact, Louise Light, the USDA's director of dietary guidance in the 1980s, led a team oftop nutritionists to craft dietary guidelines.
Their draft pyramid recommended far more vegetables and fruits, five to nine servings atthe base, and only three to four servings of grains.

(02:09):
They even stuck sugary baked goods at the top to eat sparingly and said clearly to eatless junk food.
But when their food guide draft went upstairs to the big wigs, it came back looking likesomeone had run it through a taffy puller.
They were shocked to find it vastly different, in fact, practically unrecognizable.

(02:31):
So why would the USDA higher ups butcher their own nutritionists' recommendations?
Let's just say Big Food had entered the chat.
According to Luise Light, the Office of the Secretary of Agriculture
made wholesale changes to appease food industry interests.
And you guys, have the receipts.
All of the references, all of the websites are linked on this.

(02:54):
They downplayed lean meats and low fat dairy to keep the meat and dairy lobbies happy thenjacked up the grains to placate wheat growers.
The recommended bread and cereal servings weren't just tweaked, they doubled, you guys.
Light's team said three to four servings of grains and the final pyramid said, "Nah, let'smake it six to 11 servings, effectively telling us to eat a loaf of bread a day.

(03:20):
Holy carb loading, Batman.
Even the visuals and phrasing were twisted.
So the meat lobby objected to anything implying that their product wasn't healthy.
So the guideline, eat less red meat, got sanitized to have two to three servings of meat.
And the color code, and this is per day, guys.
The color coding was altered.
They didn't want red, the color of bad associated with red meat.

(03:43):
I'm not even kidding.
The sugar industry, they fought to ensure the pyramid wouldn't explicitly say eat lesssugar.
Why would they want you to eat less sugar, right?
When you eating sugar is lining their pockets.
So it used the softer, use sweets sparingly.
And fats were demonized across the board, partly thanks to the old 1980s anti-fathysteria.

(04:07):
and it truly became a pyramid of politics over science, a fact even acknowledged byresearchers.
So how did lobbyists pull this off?
To be fair, the USDA has a built-in conflict.
It's supposed to promote US agriculture and advise on nutrition.
Let's talk about some awkward dinner conversation here.
This makes no sense to me.

(04:27):
In the 1970s and in the 80s, the US had massive grain surpluses.
way too much wheat and corn.
And according to insider accounts, the pyramid was seen as a perfect dumping ground.
Let's solve the grain surplus by telling Americans to eat a ton of grains.
Problem solved, right?

(04:48):
Except that it screwed over public health.
Political pressure and industry whining influenced every single layer of this pyramid, youguys.
The National Cattlemen's Association and the National Dairy Council lobbied hard.
When earlier USDA guides suggested people cut down on fatty meats, meat and dairy repswent berserk and got those words removed.

(05:13):
By the time the pyramid was released in 1992, it had been revised and delayed underindustry pressure multiple times.
At one point, the draft pyramid was even leaked and the meat industry protested that itstigmatized their products and the USDA actually pulled it back for further testing.

(05:33):
huh.
Yeah, I bet.
The results?
The final food pyramid, which came out in 1992, recommended two to three servings ofdairy.
Thank you, Dairy Lobby.
Two to three servings of meat.
Hello to the meat lobbyists.
And they put fats and oils in the tiny tip, so vilified that people thought even a littleolive oil would kill them.

(05:54):
And of course, our good old 6 to 11 servings of breads and cereals anchoring the wholething.
This delighted the processed food industry.
They could slap part of a balanced diet on cereal boxes and white bread.
Luise Light literally called the final guide, a concession to the processed wheat and cornindustries.

(06:14):
Her team's version had nutrient-rich veggies at the base and white flour products at thetip, and the released version basically shoved refined carbs to the base.
Remember, that means we suggest you eat mostly this.
Talk about inverted logic here.
I don't understand this.
And one more tidbit.
The sugar barons even got the wording changed in a 1995 update.

(06:37):
The USDA was finally going to say, eat less sugar, but the industry pushed back.
The revised pyramid ended up saying use sugar in moderation, dodging a direct eat lesscommand.
All these subtle changes were victories for food companies and defeats for clarity.
Defeats?
Defeats.

(06:58):
I know why I said it that way.
It's infuriating, right?
And the public had no clue that these decisions were made in boardrooms over profitmargins, not in labs over Bunsen burners and actual, you know,
hard scientific evidence.
And that's why this podcast is so important to me because I really want to unveil and sheda light on these corporate greed schemes that affect us, all of us.

(07:23):
I I remember having nutrition classes in elementary school where they literally held upgiant posters of the food pyramid.
Sounded great to me.
I would have loved to six to 11 bowls of cereal every day.
So, did this pyramid of bullshit have real consequences?
you bet your expanding waistline it did.
The food pyramid guided US nutrition policies and school lunches for decades.

(07:45):
Millions of Americans earnestly tried to follow it, thinking it was gospel.
And what happened?
Obesity skyrocketed.
Now, to be fair, as we all know, obesity is a complex issue with many factors.
But it's hard to ignore the timing.
In 1992, when the pyramid dropped, about 12 to 15 % of Americans were obese.

(08:08):
By the early 2000s, obesity had ballooned to over 30 % of the population.
One Wall Street Journal piece snarked that the pyramid itself needed to go on a diet,noting a correlation between the high-carb pyramid advice and rising obesity and diabetes.
Correlation, of course, isn't causation, but damn, it looked bad.

(08:29):
Suddenly, people were shoveling 11 servings of pasta and Wonder Bread into their mouthsbecause Uncle Sam said so.
Even the USDA's own surveys found that while 80 % of Americans recognized the pyramid,almost nobody actually followed it to the letter, thank goodness.
But they did take away the low fat Fat became enemy number one, thanks in part to sugarindustry propaganda.

(08:52):
Food companies stripped fat out of products and then pumped them full of sugar and starchto make up for taste.
You remember all those snack wells cookies, fat free, but basically sugar bombs?
We collectively binged on those.
I'm talking about like those devil's food cookies that were always like, fat free, fatfree, when they were loaded with sugar.

(09:13):
And you know what sugar turns into?
Fat.
We collectively binged on things like this, fat free this, fat free that, thinking that wewere being healthy.
And the pyramid indirectly encouraged that.
It lumped healthy fats like olive oil and nuts in with candy at the tip so folks thoughtthat all fats were bad and unlimited carbs were good.

(09:35):
Oops.
Long-term studies have since debunked the low-fat craze.
A massive eight-year trial of 50,000 women found that a low-fat diet didn't reduce heartdisease, cancer, or weight.
And I have all of these studies linked in the show notes, guys.
And systematic reviews have shown that sugar, not fat, is strongly linked to weight gainand metabolic issues.

(09:58):
So the pyramid's emphasis was, to use the technical term here, ass backwards.
So what happens when science strikes back, rebuilding this pyramid?
Eventually, modern research and public outcry forced some changes.
In 2005, for example, the USDA replaced the iconic pyramid with my pyramid, a weirdabstract pyramid with a stick figure climbing stairs, no joke, And it was confusing and

(10:27):
got scrapped.
By 2011 they gave up on pyramids entirely and moved to the My Plate icon, a plate dividedinto fruits, veggies, proteins, grains, and a side of dairy.
Simpler, yes.
Perfect, far from it.
But at least it's not telling people to eat 11 slices of bread a day.
And notably, by then, the guidelines were finally acknowledging whole grains over refinedand that not all fats are evil.

(10:55):
Progress, right?
Yet even today, industry influence still persists.
The 2020 dietary guidelines still push three servings of dairy a day, which Harvard's Dr.
Walter Willett has blasted as never been justified by the evidence.
The beef industry still fights against lowering red meat recommendations.

(11:17):
You guys, it's a damn turf war over our dinner plates.
The food pyramid saga should serve as a cautionary tale.
It's a classic case of follow the money.
When you see federal nutrition advice, ask who benefits if I eat this way.
In the pyramids case, it was big food, big wheat, big corn, big meat, big dairy.

(11:40):
So what ended up happening?
Public health took a backseat to corporate profits for years, decades even.
And we're still climbing out of the damage.
an overweight, diabetic, confused population wondering how we got it so wrong.
So the next time you see some official food graphic, remember the food pyramid scam.

(12:01):
Sometimes the most dangerous nutrition advice is dressed up in a government seal.
And as always, I call bullshit.
How did the food pyramid scam affect you?
I wanna know.
Reach out to me on Instagram at iCallBS with KB.
Leave a comment if you're watching on Spotify and make sure you follow and share thisepisode with a friend.

(12:22):
Coming up next, the dairy lobby's lies, the great milk myth.
Got milk?