Latest / Ridiculous History / The (Weirdly Crooked) History of the Food Pyramid
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
- 0:27Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
- 0:30Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. Let's hear it for our
- 0:32Speaker 1: super producer, Mr Max Williams. Yeah, Noel, right there, I'm
- 0:39Speaker 1: I'm Ben. The three of us are coming in hot
- 0:44Speaker 1: off of an exploration of breakfast Cereal which was went
- 0:49Speaker 1: in some pretty interesting, uh interesting directions, I'd say, But
- 0:52Speaker 1: we also mentioned something that I think has fascinated all
- 0:56Speaker 1: of us. In that episode, we talked about a thing
- 1:00Speaker 1: that many of our fellow Ridiculous Historians may have grown
- 1:04Speaker 1: up with, the food pyramid scheme. WHOA, No, this is
- 1:11Speaker 1: like on like posters in gym class. You know this
- 1:15Speaker 1: is uh, this is this is to be believed fully right,
- 1:18Speaker 1: there's the science behind it. Also, I mean, why can
- 1:21Speaker 1: you believe something that calls itself a pyramid when it's
- 1:23Speaker 1: clearly a triangle. It is not a three D shape.
- 1:27Speaker 1: It is a triangle. It is a food triangle. You
- 1:30Speaker 1: think that came up in the pitch meeting about the thing,
- 1:32Speaker 1: like pyramid just sounds sexier than triangle. Also, do you
- 1:36Speaker 1: think the Illuminati had anything to do with it? Just
- 1:39Speaker 1: just a thought, just putting that out there, all the
- 1:41Speaker 1: sweet stuffs at the top where the unblinking eye goes.
- 1:44Speaker 1: That's right, that's where the stuff belongs, babe at the time. Yeah,
- 1:48Speaker 1: because you know it's the pyramid is you know, you
- 1:52Speaker 1: think of the things at the top being better inherently,
- 1:55Speaker 1: but that's not the case with a pyramid or a triangle.
- 2:00Speaker 1: This isn't really a traditional hierarchy in terms of like
- 2:03Speaker 1: a list, you know, where the lowest is the worst,
- 2:05Speaker 1: in the top is the best. It's sort of inverted
- 2:08Speaker 1: from that in them. Yeah, it really is. The You
- 2:12Speaker 1: have almost doubtlessly heard of this. If you live in
- 2:15Speaker 1: the West, definitely, if you live in the US up
- 2:18Speaker 1: until two thousand and eleven, up until the early two
- 2:21Speaker 1: thousand's really the You would be a school kid and
- 2:25Speaker 1: you be presented with this thing that is yet basically
- 2:29Speaker 1: a triangle, and it's got six sections to your point, well,
- 2:33Speaker 1: at the very bottom, the biggest part of the whole
- 2:37Speaker 1: shebang is bread, cereal, rice, and pasta. And you're you're
- 2:42Speaker 1: you're recommended a number of servings you should have each day.
- 2:46Speaker 1: So the food pyramid says you should mostly be eating
- 2:50Speaker 1: this stuff at the bottom six to eleven servings per day,
- 2:54Speaker 1: and then it goes up to uh, vegetables and fruit
- 2:58Speaker 1: together there like the next two blocks. Right, that's right,
- 3:01Speaker 1: And we you know, we we certainly talked about this
- 3:03Speaker 1: on the cereal episode. How the kind of base of
- 3:06Speaker 1: the pyramid is bread, cereal, rice and pasta and all that.
- 3:08Speaker 1: Then we have veggies and fruits. But also we know
- 3:11Speaker 1: that fruits contain kind of a lot of sugar sometimes,
- 3:15Speaker 1: so best to sort of temper that, maybe veggies should
- 3:18Speaker 1: be that whole section, and then fruits should maybe be
- 3:22Speaker 1: a little bit under sweets. I don't know, like I
- 3:25Speaker 1: think that think certain opinions are divided on whether the
- 3:29Speaker 1: sugar and fruit is like better than the sugar like
- 3:32Speaker 1: you know, refined sugar things like breakfast cereal. Yeah, no,
- 3:37Speaker 1: that's the thing what we're what we're saying now may
- 3:40Speaker 1: strike you as a bit off if you if you
- 3:43Speaker 1: really think through if the number of servings recommended versus
- 3:47Speaker 1: the stuff that you would actually eat every day or
- 3:51Speaker 1: the stuff your doctor nutritionists may have told you to follow.
- 3:55Speaker 1: So yeah, you go above fruit and vegetables, and then
- 3:58Speaker 1: you get to milk, yogurt and cheese as well. As
- 4:02Speaker 1: meat of any kind, and then beans, eggs, and nuts,
- 4:06Speaker 1: the proteins, those are only two to three servings each.
- 4:10Speaker 1: And then at the very very top with the illuminati,
- 4:14Speaker 1: I you've got fat, oils and sweets. I'm just gonna
- 4:18Speaker 1: be a hundred percent honest with you, guys. I have
- 4:23Speaker 1: not ever probably followed this. Yeah, I don't know how.
- 4:28Speaker 1: I mean, I guess the serving. Also, we know serving
- 4:31Speaker 1: sizes in and of themselves are a little problematic because
- 4:35Speaker 1: they used to not really be as much of a
- 4:38Speaker 1: thing in terms of accuracy, you know, And now I
- 4:42Speaker 1: think a lot of these companies have sort of been
- 4:43Speaker 1: pressured maybe not pressured in three where it's probably the law,
- 4:47Speaker 1: into having accurate serving sizes. So while you might think
- 4:51Speaker 1: that like pot pie would be one serving, it's actually
- 4:55Speaker 1: two servings. And those things are about thousand calories of
- 4:58Speaker 1: those those chicken pop if you eat the whole thing.
- 5:01Speaker 1: So but also it's it's it's a it's like a
- 5:03Speaker 1: personal pan pizza, right, Like that's it's for me. I'm
- 5:07Speaker 1: supposed to. I had an entire one of them a
- 5:10Speaker 1: few nights ago, and I don't feel bad at all
- 5:12Speaker 1: about it. I've time Your days are numbered macks. Your
- 5:15Speaker 1: days are numbered. So what's strange about this is for
- 5:18Speaker 1: many people, this is one of those things you didn't
- 5:22Speaker 1: question growing up, right, depending on how old you were,
- 5:25Speaker 1: this was simply presented to you as a fact all
- 5:29Speaker 1: throughout grade school. And one way we can get into
- 5:33Speaker 1: this is with some excellent research by you, Max, where
- 5:37Speaker 1: you cite Jesse Rhodes over Smithsonian Magazine who said the following,
- 5:43Speaker 1: some of the information I learned in school isn't holding
- 5:45Speaker 1: up so well. Pluto's no longer a planet. Basics of
- 5:49Speaker 1: CPR have been heavily revised. So I am now the
- 5:52Speaker 1: absolute last person went around an invented an emergency. And
- 5:55Speaker 1: now the U. S d A is raising the food
- 5:58Speaker 1: Pyramid to make way for a new visual model to
- 6:02Speaker 1: help Americans figure out how to plan a balanced diet.
- 6:05Speaker 1: Is that out yet? What does the new visual model
- 6:08Speaker 1: look like? It certainly didn't get the same press support
- 6:11Speaker 1: that the that the food pyramid did. Oh yeah, it's
- 6:13Speaker 1: called my plate and no already had your socks blown off.
- 6:17Speaker 1: It's been out for twelve years. Yeah, well eleven and
- 6:20Speaker 1: a half years. Isn't that funny? Though? I mean, it
- 6:23Speaker 1: doesn't really surprise me. But I guess you know what
- 6:25Speaker 1: we've already said with all of the posters and just
- 6:28Speaker 1: you know, the Presidential Fitness Challenge and things like that,
- 6:31Speaker 1: that we grew up with the food pyramid, which is
- 6:33Speaker 1: always front and center and to your point, been like
- 6:36Speaker 1: almost presented just to be believed as facts because of
- 6:39Speaker 1: course the government put it out so the government wouldn't
- 6:42Speaker 1: lie to us. Right there, they're they're they're like completely
- 6:44Speaker 1: neutral and uh in terms of our health, right, they
- 6:47Speaker 1: want us to thrive and live our best lives. Yeah,
- 6:50Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, I wish I could say,
- 6:53Speaker 1: I wish I could agree, and I love I think
- 6:55Speaker 1: we both know where this is going. It reminds me
- 6:59Speaker 1: that this is the this is the same country where
- 7:02Speaker 1: growing up there would just be ads for milk, just
- 7:06Speaker 1: trade groups saying you should drink milk, not a specific
- 7:09Speaker 1: kind of milk, not a brand. They just the food
- 7:13Speaker 1: industry was involved. And that's what we see here, right,
- 7:16Speaker 1: because we know diet is not a one size fits
- 7:18Speaker 1: all thing. We know that the food pyramid, which was
- 7:23Speaker 1: introduced and it's uh dominant form in the food pyramid,
- 7:29Speaker 1: forget some things. It forgets that there are good and
- 7:32Speaker 1: bad carbs, good and bad fats. It's a little bit compromised,
- 7:38Speaker 1: you could say, by lobbying groups in the world of
- 7:42Speaker 1: cattle and dairy. Right, of course, those are massive interests.
- 7:47Speaker 1: I mean the whole beef It's What's for Dinner campaign,
- 7:51Speaker 1: you know, our milk exactly, all of that stuff. They
- 7:55Speaker 1: were ubiquitous and was very little actual data behind them.
- 8:00Speaker 1: It was all just kind of like campaigns to get
- 8:03Speaker 1: people on board with these massive industrial interests, you know.
- 8:07Speaker 1: I mean this is like factory farming type stuff. These
- 8:10Speaker 1: are legacy operations. Not to mention, do y'all remember when
- 8:14Speaker 1: they started putting soda machines and schools like that was
- 8:18Speaker 1: a kind of controversial thing at the time, that it
- 8:20Speaker 1: didn't stop them from happening. I distinctly remember being in
- 8:23Speaker 1: high school and you could get surge, which was, you know,
- 8:27Speaker 1: the amount of sugar and caffeine and it's like it
- 8:30Speaker 1: puts Mountain Dew to shame. There was even something called Josta.
- 8:34Speaker 1: I don't even think they make it anymore, but it
- 8:35Speaker 1: was Josta with guarana and it had like a like
- 8:39Speaker 1: a like a panther on the on the on the label,
- 8:42Speaker 1: and it was this kind of like supplemented jen sing
- 8:46Speaker 1: kind of thing. Nobody talks about Josta with Guarana anymore
- 8:49Speaker 1: because it wasn't good and it's not like the kids
- 8:53Speaker 1: that were buying the stuff. We're being policed. You've had
- 8:56Speaker 1: too much soda, little Johnny. No, it was just it
- 8:58Speaker 1: was a commercial interest being inserted into the schools, and
- 9:04Speaker 1: Josta did make a little bit of come of a comeback.
- 9:07Speaker 1: By the way, it is in the Disney Plus series Loki,
- 9:11Speaker 1: if you want to check it out. They remember Johnston
- 9:13Speaker 1: at this This is true, and people would pay a
- 9:15Speaker 1: lot of money to for those sodas right there, would
- 9:18Speaker 1: be more expensive than your average non school based vending machine.
- 9:23Speaker 1: So yeah, financial interests were definitely involved in some of
- 9:28Speaker 1: the decisions here that were presented as fact. So you
- 9:32Speaker 1: could argue the food Pyramid has it something like a
- 9:35Speaker 1: conspiracy in its origin story. But let's let's talk about that.
- 9:39Speaker 1: Let's talk about the origin. So the U s d
- 9:48Speaker 1: A back in the day formed their first dietary guidance
- 9:52Speaker 1: for Americans based on a farmer's bulletin that was written
- 9:57Speaker 1: by a guy named wo at Water in eighteen ninety four.
- 10:03Speaker 1: At Water, who worked for the Office of Experiments Stations
- 10:08Speaker 1: in the U. S d. A. Right, sounds completely above board, right,
- 10:12Speaker 1: How big is that? What do you do for a
- 10:14Speaker 1: living sir? Well, baby, I like to experiment, Yeah, stations
- 10:21Speaker 1: at stations. Uh, he said, Okay, I'm going to figure
- 10:25Speaker 1: out diets. But his diet was, uh, specifically for American males.
- 10:31Speaker 1: He said, We're gonna look at the ideal level of protein, carbohydrate, fat,
- 10:37Speaker 1: and mineral matter, specifically ash that these growing boys need. Yeah,
- 10:43Speaker 1: Noll's making the perfect face for that. Yeah. He said
- 10:46Speaker 1: that went in at the end, like as a byproduct
- 10:49Speaker 1: of Yeah. Well, I mean I know that ash can
- 10:54Speaker 1: be a good like nutrient rich thing for for looking
- 10:59Speaker 1: for soil. Yeah, of course, are you not eating enough ash? I?
- 11:03Speaker 1: I don't know. I've never really thought about it as
- 11:05Speaker 1: as part of my my nutritional portfolio until this exact minute. Um.
- 11:09Speaker 1: But specifically, we're talking also about minerals and vitamins like iron,
- 11:13Speaker 1: vitamin C, calcium and all of that stuff. And as
- 11:16Speaker 1: we know and discussed in the serial episode, some of
- 11:20Speaker 1: these things became kind of like buzz terms, you know,
- 11:23Speaker 1: like your daily allowance, you know of vitamins, not allowance. Uh,
- 11:27Speaker 1: it's it's a necessity. You want x amount of vitamin
- 11:30Speaker 1: C and UH and calcium in your daily diet, and you, boy,
- 11:34Speaker 1: how do you can achieve that with one bowl of
- 11:37Speaker 1: Captain crunch or ash or ash. Uh. Yeah, it's weird
- 11:42Speaker 1: because he says ash. We think because like like you
- 11:46Speaker 1: were saying nol at this point in time, there were
- 11:49Speaker 1: a lot of specific minerals of vitamins that science didn't
- 11:53Speaker 1: know about that and they hadn't been able to pin
- 11:56Speaker 1: down those culprits. Uh. So, well, it's fast forward. The
- 12:00Speaker 1: first complete U s D. A Food Guide Food for
- 12:04Speaker 1: Young Children, is written by a nutritionist named Carolyn Hunt,
- 12:08Speaker 1: and it comes out in nineteen sixteen. I think this
- 12:11Speaker 1: is where we start to see the predecessors of the
- 12:15Speaker 1: food pyramid. Yeah, like instead of you know, talking about
- 12:18Speaker 1: minerals that we're talking more about food stuffs like milk
- 12:22Speaker 1: and meats, cereals, grains, pasta, you know, vegetables and fruits,
- 12:27Speaker 1: fats and fatty foods, sugars and other foods that are
- 12:31Speaker 1: high in sugar um. The food guide that we're in
- 12:36Speaker 1: question here was followed up in nineteen seventeen by Specific
- 12:39Speaker 1: dietary recommendations. And I think this is maybe when we
- 12:43Speaker 1: started really hearing these referred to as food groups, because
- 12:46Speaker 1: that's also a thing I remember from health class growing up,
- 12:49Speaker 1: is talking about how important the food groups are. Yeah. Yeah,
- 12:52Speaker 1: it's this is where we were taught that foods rolling
- 12:57Speaker 1: clicks and you have to be care of all which
- 13:00Speaker 1: clicks you mess with. Uh. Yeah, the there are these
- 13:03Speaker 1: five groups, right. Um, there's a little bit of change
- 13:08Speaker 1: over time, but basically they're the same groups that will
- 13:11Speaker 1: later end up in the food pyramid. In nineteen seventeen,
- 13:14Speaker 1: the very next year, there is a publication called how
- 13:18Speaker 1: to Select Foods and it is full of dietary recommendations
- 13:24Speaker 1: based on this five food group theory. In the nineteen thirties,
- 13:29Speaker 1: of course, the depression comes along. Life is absolutely terrible
- 13:33Speaker 1: for most people living in the country, and a lot
- 13:36Speaker 1: of people are trying to survive intense economic hardship, a
- 13:41Speaker 1: lot of privation. You know, you could say, hey, here
- 13:45Speaker 1: are the food groups all the live long day, but
- 13:47Speaker 1: the reality is a lot of people can't afford to
- 13:51Speaker 1: eat healthy and this definitely influenced diet advice. Yeah, I mean,
- 13:55Speaker 1: they maybe wouldn't have access to certain types of produce
- 13:58Speaker 1: or they wouldn't have access you he knows what we
- 14:00Speaker 1: would maybe considered today certain areas being called food deserts.
- 14:04Speaker 1: But this is sort of twofold that there was like
- 14:07Speaker 1: a lot of non arable lands, you know, because of
- 14:10Speaker 1: the dust bowl and agriculture becoming increasingly difficult because of
- 14:14Speaker 1: droughts and in certain parts of the country. So yeah,
- 14:16Speaker 1: you literally wouldn't have access to that. So it was
- 14:18Speaker 1: all about just kind of getting your calories in so
- 14:21Speaker 1: that you could survive. I mean, I always think of, uh,
- 14:24Speaker 1: you know, there's a really heartbreaking scene in the Grapes
- 14:27Speaker 1: of Wrath where a grown adult is I think, like
- 14:32Speaker 1: drinking breast milk from from somebody, you know, because that
- 14:36Speaker 1: was the only way they could actually get sustenance. It's yeah,
- 14:40Speaker 1: it's the harrowing, right, and this is where we start
- 14:44Speaker 1: to see food economist Wait and so nine getting very
- 14:49Speaker 1: terrible time. Hazel Steebling is a food economist working for
- 14:56Speaker 1: the U. S d A. And she develops food plans
- 15:00Speaker 1: that are specifically meant to be cheap. There they're supposed
- 15:05Speaker 1: to be um tiered in terms of cost. This will
- 15:09Speaker 1: help you shop for food, you know, or this is,
- 15:13Speaker 1: you know, if you look at it as you get
- 15:15Speaker 1: to the lower cost there's an emphasis on being able
- 15:18Speaker 1: to grow your own vegetables right to to avoid having
- 15:22Speaker 1: to spend money you don't have at the grocery store,
- 15:26Speaker 1: and they give you twelve major food groups and it's
- 15:31Speaker 1: like a week by week thing. It's it's pretty interesting.
- 15:34Speaker 1: I've seen um similar stuff honestly, in like survival advice,
- 15:40Speaker 1: like here's the basic food you need to survive in
- 15:43Speaker 1: the woods when you're camping. Well, because a lot of
- 15:46Speaker 1: this stuff, you know, at the end of the day
- 15:48Speaker 1: is a luxury, you know, to to be able to
- 15:51Speaker 1: choose to eat healthy and to have a variety of
- 15:55Speaker 1: food stuffs in your diet as opposed to just like
- 15:58Speaker 1: eating neutral loaf for some sort of like bar that
- 16:01Speaker 1: just gives you, you know, the bare essentials of what
- 16:03Speaker 1: a human body needs to survive. Oh and you know
- 16:07Speaker 1: what we got. We put our cards before our fats here.
- 16:12Speaker 1: Sorry everybody. Uh. The U s d A is is
- 16:15Speaker 1: the short name for the United States Department of Agriculture.
- 16:19Speaker 1: Just the case that isn't clear if everybody thought we
- 16:21Speaker 1: were saying, you know, the uniform stressful diet of uniform
- 16:28Speaker 1: stressful diet adherents. No, it's it's agriculture anyway. So World
- 16:33Speaker 1: War two starts. We're out of the depression, but now
- 16:36Speaker 1: there's a huge war and countries are all across the
- 16:41Speaker 1: board kind of trying to keep their citizens healthy and
- 16:46Speaker 1: give them good advice while also knowing that everybody is
- 16:51Speaker 1: having a tough time. Again, this is the era of
- 16:54Speaker 1: war rationing. Right. In some parts of the world, you
- 16:56Speaker 1: have coupons that allow you to buy stuff and only
- 17:00Speaker 1: certain amounts. Had a McCloud in writing for Smoky Mountain
- 17:05Speaker 1: News and you found this one. Max notes that the
- 17:08Speaker 1: food pyramid, as we recognize it, was born out of hardship,
- 17:14Speaker 1: and you can tell, Hannah argues, because there are some
- 17:18Speaker 1: things that are just confusing the way that they're grouped.
- 17:21Speaker 1: That's right. The US Department of Agriculture U s d
- 17:24Speaker 1: A released the Basic Seven Food Guide, so we're down
- 17:28Speaker 1: from twelve now to seven, with the tagline US needs
- 17:32Speaker 1: a strong eat the Basic seven every day. And this
- 17:37Speaker 1: grouping actually wasn't awful, like it had a little bit
- 17:41Speaker 1: of of nuts and bolts kind of sense behind it.
- 17:44Speaker 1: Raw cabbage somehow, though, ended up in the oranges, tomatoes,
- 17:48Speaker 1: and grapefruit section, um, instead of in the vegetables or
- 17:52Speaker 1: the green and yellow vegetables section, which is a little odd.
- 17:56Speaker 1: Also in the same way that I think it's odd
- 17:58Speaker 1: that that a tomato is a fruit, although it is
- 18:00Speaker 1: that for scientific reasons, because of the seeds and all
- 18:03Speaker 1: of that. Yeah, you just thinking about that first thing
- 18:05Speaker 1: in the morning. You're like, I could have my orange juice,
- 18:07Speaker 1: I can have like grape fruit juice. I could have
- 18:10Speaker 1: my cabbage juice. Mmmmmmm. I can't wait till someone figures
- 18:15Speaker 1: out a cereal that combines grain and cabbage. Well, if
- 18:20Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken, cabbage was also a very hardy crop
- 18:23Speaker 1: and uh and very you know, um contained a lot
- 18:26Speaker 1: of those essential vitamins and minerals and calories. So I
- 18:30Speaker 1: mean it was you know, here in Atlanta, we've got
- 18:33Speaker 1: a neighborhood called Cabbage Town and that's because a lot
- 18:36Speaker 1: of farmers would sell their cabbages there during times of
- 18:40Speaker 1: economic difficulty, and it was something that the average folks
- 18:43Speaker 1: could afford. Is that really white cabbage towns name that?
- 18:47Speaker 1: Oh that's cool? Hey, Like, can I get the more?
- 18:50Speaker 1: You know? Perfect? Thank you, thank you? Noel. I learned
- 18:58Speaker 1: something today. Yes, the idea is. The idea here is
- 19:05Speaker 1: to incentivize people also to eat things that they might
- 19:10Speaker 1: not normally eat, so that we can get around some
- 19:13Speaker 1: of the constraints of war. The very first quote unquote
- 19:18Speaker 1: food pyramid doesn't really come from World War two, though,
- 19:22Speaker 1: it comes from the nineteen seventies and another time of
- 19:28Speaker 1: economic hardship, not in the US but in Sweden. Here
- 19:32Speaker 1: in the US, a lot of people see Sweden as
- 19:34Speaker 1: a pretty expensive country, and it is in some ways.
- 19:39Speaker 1: So they were fighting high food prices back in the seventies,
- 19:43Speaker 1: and so the government went to the National Board of
- 19:46Speaker 1: Health and Welfare and said, all right, we need your
- 19:51Speaker 1: help with this. We need to help people navigate this
- 19:55Speaker 1: runaway inflation, these food prices. So this group, this National Board,
- 19:59Speaker 1: the Social Steels, they say, all right, here's how we're
- 20:02Speaker 1: going to divide this. We're gonna talk about basic and
- 20:05Speaker 1: supplementary foods. Basic foods are the things you have to
- 20:10Speaker 1: eat to survive. Supplementary foods are things that provide vitamins
- 20:15Speaker 1: and minerals that your basic stuff doesn't. Right, Um, So,
- 20:20Speaker 1: so you know, supplementary, just like the word uh means
- 20:24Speaker 1: typically things that are not absolute necessities, you know, to survival,
- 20:28Speaker 1: perhaps maybe a little bit more of a luxury. But
- 20:31Speaker 1: it was Anne britt aggn stature agg Stator who worked
- 20:36Speaker 1: for the cooperative fur Bundit, which is a Swedish coop
- 20:40Speaker 1: union um representing retail and grocery workers. It was her
- 20:46Speaker 1: who pushed the idea to the next level, uh and
- 20:49Speaker 1: gave it kind of a bit of a codification. So
- 20:52Speaker 1: this essentially took the ideas that the social Steelson had
- 20:58Speaker 1: about basic food groups to the next level by developing
- 21:01Speaker 1: the idea of a proportional model, you know, sort of
- 21:05Speaker 1: a hierarchy something of a triangle, you know, with the
- 21:08Speaker 1: most important stuff on the bottom, and then as it
- 21:11Speaker 1: progressed and tapered to a point, you'd see the less
- 21:15Speaker 1: uh necessary foods represented. So it was kind of almost
- 21:20Speaker 1: like a hierarchy of needs kind of situation where it's like, Okay,
- 21:24Speaker 1: you're fine if you just stick to these big ones
- 21:27Speaker 1: on the bottom, and as it goes upward, you're not
- 21:29Speaker 1: gonna die from from malnutrition if you maybe don't have
- 21:34Speaker 1: enough of these. Yeah, and this really is a master shrow.
- 21:38Speaker 1: This is a great idea because most people in the
- 21:42Speaker 1: world then as now are not nutritionists us included. So
- 21:47Speaker 1: having that visual representation makes the information uh hate the
- 21:52Speaker 1: accidental wordplay here easy to digest. You know, you can
- 21:56Speaker 1: look at it and you can your brain can instaly
- 22:00Speaker 1: intuitively understand I should have more of this, I should
- 22:04Speaker 1: have less of this. It's not perfect, but it's a
- 22:07Speaker 1: really cool idea and props to you on a brit
- 22:11Speaker 1: So the Swedish public learns about this shortly thereafter. It's
- 22:17Speaker 1: published in an annual magazine by that Swedish cooperative union
- 22:22Speaker 1: and the headline is good wholesome food at reasonable prices.
- 22:27Speaker 1: They also had a little bit of tention. At this point.
- 22:30Speaker 1: The Swedish government tried to distance itself from the pyramid
- 22:35Speaker 1: to introduce something called a dietary circle, the old circle
- 22:41Speaker 1: versus the pyramid and arguments to this day. Yeah yeah.
- 22:46Speaker 1: And the the thing was this circular model could show
- 22:52Speaker 1: you what foods were important, but unlike the pyramid, it
- 22:56Speaker 1: didn't explicitly show you how much of each type of
- 22:59Speaker 1: food should be consumed. Anyway, this was the first of
- 23:05Speaker 1: its kind and it was a triangle or a pyramid
- 23:08Speaker 1: in shape, but it was not not the one that
- 23:13Speaker 1: you might know and love from the US. There were
- 23:17Speaker 1: some very different aspects of these the one from the US,
- 23:22Speaker 1: the westernized model. It's different not so much because there
- 23:26Speaker 1: was a better understanding nutrition health over time. It's like
- 23:30Speaker 1: we tease the beginning, this model was affected by lobbyists,
- 23:34Speaker 1: by interest groups in big agriculture, in the food industry. Uh,
- 23:39Speaker 1: they were through willing to throw millions of dollars into
- 23:43Speaker 1: how their products were represented here. Well, Ben, you might
- 23:48Speaker 1: have a different perspective or more nuanced, but like the U.
- 23:51Speaker 1: S Department of Agriculture, it is a regulatory body, but
- 23:55Speaker 1: it was originally, you know, established to promote agriculture and
- 23:59Speaker 1: to make sure that farmers and farms had what they
- 24:03Speaker 1: needed because this is an important part of the you know,
- 24:06Speaker 1: um economic portfolio of the country, not to mention um,
- 24:12Speaker 1: making sure that citizens had what they needed to survive
- 24:15Speaker 1: and to eat. So it makes sense that they would
- 24:18Speaker 1: kind of from the start have been in bed with
- 24:21Speaker 1: big business rep interest that represented agriculture when we moved
- 24:27Speaker 1: from like a more agrarian economy to something that that
- 24:31Speaker 1: was really represented by more corporate kind of structures. Yeah,
- 24:35Speaker 1: and you know that's well said. And also I would
- 24:38Speaker 1: add that we don't want to demonize these groups entirely.
- 24:42Speaker 1: The reality is they need to have they need to
- 24:46Speaker 1: exist because this way you can enforce some uniform standards, right,
- 24:51Speaker 1: some safety practices, some higiatic stuff there. There is a
- 24:55Speaker 1: good reason for them to be there. But also they
- 24:58Speaker 1: are private industries, so their primary thing is going to
- 25:01Speaker 1: be profit year over year. The U s d A's
- 25:05Speaker 1: Food Guide comes out UH mid nineteen eighties. It's called
- 25:09Speaker 1: a Pattern for Daily Food Choices UH and it had
- 25:13Speaker 1: been used for a while, but people didn't know a
- 25:17Speaker 1: lot about it. So it's when the eggheads in the
- 25:22Speaker 1: US decide, all right, we're gonna we're gonna do what
- 25:25Speaker 1: the Swedish did. We're gonna make a graphic presentation of
- 25:28Speaker 1: our food guide, and we're gonna try to easily show
- 25:32Speaker 1: people three things. Variety, how much different stuff should I eat? Proportionality,
- 25:38Speaker 1: how much of it should I eat in comparison to
- 25:40Speaker 1: other groups? And moderation when should have pumped the brakes
- 25:45Speaker 1: on all that sweet sweet sugar. And they also arrived
- 25:49Speaker 1: at a pyramid. It just sounds good, it sounds official,
- 25:51Speaker 1: it sounds like a plan, but it's also pr because
- 25:57Speaker 1: on the one hand. Yeah, they're putting out these guys
- 26:00Speaker 1: that they have plausible deniability when they also green light
- 26:03Speaker 1: soda machines and schools. You know what I mean. Now,
- 26:08Speaker 1: I mean I like a Coca Cola Classic as a treat,
- 26:10Speaker 1: but I mean, I you know, kind of cut that
- 26:12Speaker 1: of my life in favor of you know, less caloric
- 26:16Speaker 1: sugary fizzy drinks. You know, I'm coffee, but I like
- 26:20Speaker 1: the you know, lacroise of the world. And obviously we're
- 26:23Speaker 1: living in the time now where sugary drinks have a
- 26:27Speaker 1: bad rap, you know, for good reasons. So a lot
- 26:29Speaker 1: of those companies have had to diversify and do more
- 26:32Speaker 1: like kind of you know, uh, low calorie fizzy water
- 26:35Speaker 1: kind of alternatives. Yeah, this is um, this is a
- 26:39Speaker 1: good point. No, not everybody is a fan of Laka
- 26:43Speaker 1: or Montane or whatever, but the lacroix. But the you know,
- 26:47Speaker 1: I like, what's the old joke, the lemon flavored saltzer
- 26:52Speaker 1: water sounds like you're walking down a hallway and someone
- 26:56Speaker 1: in another room goes lemon like like this, it's more
- 27:00Speaker 1: for the fizz. Yeah, I've heard described as somebody shouting
- 27:04Speaker 1: the name of a fruit from the next room. My
- 27:06Speaker 1: girlfriend thinks that, uh like flavored lacroix and stuff taste
- 27:10Speaker 1: like television static. I don't. Yeah, especially the citrus ones
- 27:15Speaker 1: for some reason, it sparks me Snastasia. Have you guys
- 27:18Speaker 1: had the lemon cello le cello? Yes, it's I don't like,
- 27:24Speaker 1: it's way too much. I mean, I I like just
- 27:26Speaker 1: plain soda water, So like if I had one with
- 27:28Speaker 1: a little bit of lemon, that's good to me. But
- 27:30Speaker 1: like that's like, oh god, what is this? Yeah, I'm
- 27:33Speaker 1: I'm like, give me a good iced coffee, you know, uh,
- 27:38Speaker 1: And I'll take a I'll take as soda as a
- 27:40Speaker 1: treat because I associate them with going to the movies,
- 27:43Speaker 1: you know what I mean, that's where you get the
- 27:44Speaker 1: popcorn in the soda and make the bad food decisions.
- 27:47Speaker 1: But do you ever put Eminem's in your popcorn? That's
- 27:50Speaker 1: the thing people apparently do. Yeah, I do it all
- 27:51Speaker 1: the time, right on. I mean what I eat popcorn?
- 27:55Speaker 1: I guess I didn't know that you were a monstrosity. Man,
- 27:59Speaker 1: m It's is good. I like Reese's pieces, and a
- 28:03Speaker 1: lot of people just realized Reese's pieces or Reese's pieces.
- 28:06Speaker 1: I like to call them contain no chocolate. It's basically
- 28:09Speaker 1: just just peanut butter with a thin candy shell. And
- 28:12Speaker 1: the only reason they're so famous is because Eminem's didn't
- 28:16Speaker 1: work out for Et the Extraterrestrial. They're supposed to be
- 28:19Speaker 1: Eminem's originally product placement. The hell of a drug product placement, baby. Anyway,
- 28:25Speaker 1: this show is brought to you by Josta. All Right,
- 28:34Speaker 1: so the Food Guide Pyramid, let's might surprise people who
- 28:38Speaker 1: have grown up with it in your entire life. The
- 28:41Speaker 1: Food Guide Pyramid wasn't released until nineteen ninety two, which
- 28:46Speaker 1: really blew my mind right to me, it's just something
- 28:49Speaker 1: that I always have known. I just assume that it
- 28:52Speaker 1: has been around. It seems like a sixties thing, doesn't
- 28:54Speaker 1: it kind of even design. Yeah, so there may be
- 28:58Speaker 1: things where the sweeter model was presented in some textbooks
- 29:02Speaker 1: or something beforehand. But the Official Food Guide Pyramid, as
- 29:06Speaker 1: the u S understands it, comes out supposed to help
- 29:10Speaker 1: you visualize, uh, the proportion, proportions and moderation you should
- 29:15Speaker 1: be using from those dietary guidelines. It shows you the
- 29:18Speaker 1: name names of the food groups and some basically clip
- 29:22Speaker 1: art of what they look like like. Here is a
- 29:24Speaker 1: loaf of bread. Oh that's a fish. Uh. And they're separated,
- 29:29Speaker 1: you know, they're segregated throughout the pyramid. You can see,
- 29:33Speaker 1: um the variety in those pictures, the little icons of
- 29:38Speaker 1: what kind of food counts as a grain or a
- 29:40Speaker 1: bread or a post or whatever. Then you can see
- 29:43Speaker 1: proportionality because they'll give you a rough size in the
- 29:47Speaker 1: pyramid and then the list servings even though you know,
- 29:50Speaker 1: again as we know, serving sizes or wildly misrepresented here
- 29:56Speaker 1: in in US grocery stores. Yeah, I mean, like I said,
- 29:59Speaker 1: if you know where to look, you can get whatever
- 30:02Speaker 1: the U s D A appropriate serving size is for
- 30:05Speaker 1: a given product. But a lot of people don't dig
- 30:07Speaker 1: that deep and assume that, like I can just eat
- 30:09Speaker 1: the whole pot pie or eat the whole you know,
- 30:12Speaker 1: lean cuisine or whatever it might be. But usually if
- 30:15Speaker 1: you get a small bag of chips, even that's like
- 30:18Speaker 1: two serving sizes, even though you you would assume then
- 30:21Speaker 1: it's this is meant to be consumed in one sitting.
- 30:23Speaker 1: This is one serving because it comes in a small bag, right,
- 30:26Speaker 1: And restaurants don't help either. That's the thing that continually
- 30:30Speaker 1: baffles my friends who are not from the United States.
- 30:34Speaker 1: A lot of times when people visit the United States,
- 30:37Speaker 1: the first thing they clock is the wide variety of
- 30:41Speaker 1: food and the fact that so much food is thrown
- 30:44Speaker 1: at you. Free refills are not a thing, and a
- 30:47Speaker 1: lot of other parts of the world, but that that's
- 30:49Speaker 1: always amazing to me as well. You know, when when
- 30:52Speaker 1: I go through phases where I don't go to a
- 30:54Speaker 1: bunch of restaurants, I'm still continually amazed when I realize
- 30:58Speaker 1: almost any main core so I order is like two meals. Yeah,
- 31:02Speaker 1: and if you go to like a fine dining place,
- 31:04Speaker 1: for example, you might bulk at the serving size or
- 31:08Speaker 1: like the amount of food on the plate, but if
- 31:10Speaker 1: it's done well and it tastes good, you'll probably end
- 31:14Speaker 1: up getting the sample more small plates and small kind
- 31:17Speaker 1: of things and not walk away hungry, but also not
- 31:20Speaker 1: walk away gorged, which I think, to me is the
- 31:23Speaker 1: perfect meal experience. You know, I want to taste different things,
- 31:27Speaker 1: have an enjoyable culinary experience, but not feel like Logi
- 31:32Speaker 1: and horrible afterwards. Back because I see your eyes lighting
- 31:35Speaker 1: up here. Yes, yes, yes, as Nol and Ben both No,
- 31:38Speaker 1: I've spent many days tending tending a tending a table
- 31:44Speaker 1: or or tending a bar. And I remember I worked
- 31:46Speaker 1: at a tapas restaurant at one point, and you would
- 31:48Speaker 1: have like guys, like guys come in, you know, twenties,
- 31:51Speaker 1: thirties and stuff like that, and they order their food
- 31:52Speaker 1: and they look their plate and they'll be just like,
- 31:54Speaker 1: what is this. I'm like, it's topas mat It's supposed
- 31:57Speaker 1: to be really small. You're supposed to get like five
- 31:58Speaker 1: of the They're like, I thought it was topless. Where's
- 32:01Speaker 1: the poll? You know, we actually worked on a concept
- 32:04Speaker 1: of a place called topless tapas where all of us
- 32:07Speaker 1: were topless. I mean it wasn't It wasn't not a
- 32:09Speaker 1: sexual way. It's an artistic way. Every everyone everyone's topless,
- 32:14Speaker 1: you know, like the cooks, the customers, everyone. Well, okay,
- 32:21Speaker 1: the genius tapas is uh someone saying, hey, what if
- 32:25Speaker 1: we just charged eight more dollars for this appetizer? Actually,
- 32:30Speaker 1: I'm I'm being rude because that's us tapas. Tapas where
- 32:34Speaker 1: they're from in Spain, are supposed to come free at
- 32:37Speaker 1: wine bars to keep you drinking wine. That's where tapas
- 32:41Speaker 1: come from, and their association got americanized a little bit.
- 32:46Speaker 1: Tapas places can be delicious. It's just that Bill sneaks
- 32:49Speaker 1: up on you. That Bill will come for you at
- 32:52Speaker 1: the end. Uh. And most of my friends who love
- 32:55Speaker 1: tapas love it because they go on they go on
- 32:58Speaker 1: dates where some one else pays at the top of
- 33:01Speaker 1: his restaurant. If I'm ever in a situation like that,
- 33:04Speaker 1: my friends, I'm gonna come back radicalized. I'm gonna be like,
- 33:07Speaker 1: oh my god, have you guys heard of tapas? It's amazing?
- 33:11Speaker 1: What about stroop Waffles? You guys know about stroop waffles
- 33:14Speaker 1: in this incredible delicacy from you know, my travels, my
- 33:18Speaker 1: backpacking travels. They're not bad with coffee, are you? Are
- 33:24Speaker 1: you a stroop waffle guy? I get him at Rufford
- 33:28Speaker 1: Highway farmer's work. That's where you get more variety. But
- 33:30Speaker 1: the joke is as they just dude that I follow
- 33:32Speaker 1: on TikTok made a funny video where he did a
- 33:35Speaker 1: song about some kind of brow e dude like like saying, hey,
- 33:39Speaker 1: if you heard of stroop waffles? I discovered them in
- 33:41Speaker 1: my travels abroad and scanned Dnavia. But the joke is
- 33:44Speaker 1: that you get him at Starbucks and they've been there
- 33:46Speaker 1: for you know, years. Yeah, yeah, okay, I got you.
- 33:51Speaker 1: Well this this guy might be a little confused if
- 33:54Speaker 1: he's trying to figure out where stroop raffle waffle fits
- 33:57Speaker 1: in to the food pyramid. And that's because the food
- 34:00Speaker 1: pyramid is still kind of imperfect. You would know that, uh,
- 34:06Speaker 1: the very top of the pyramid is more a category
- 34:11Speaker 1: of things that can be added to foods. So candy
- 34:15Speaker 1: is high in sugar, that exists in the top part.
- 34:19Speaker 1: That the part you're supposed to use spared lee. Uh,
- 34:22Speaker 1: foods that are high and fat might fit in there too,
- 34:25Speaker 1: maybe think just some really good fatty barbecue brisket. But
- 34:30Speaker 1: to your point, ben, fats have gotten maligned, you know,
- 34:34Speaker 1: convenient by the sugar industry. So there's this push and
- 34:37Speaker 1: pull between all of these different interests, you know, in
- 34:40Speaker 1: terms of like which is the good thing and which
- 34:42Speaker 1: is the bad thing, and how can we kind of
- 34:44Speaker 1: spin it one way or the other. But there are
- 34:46Speaker 1: fats and certain amounts of fats that are good you
- 34:50Speaker 1: know or quote unquote good good fats, And it's all
- 34:53Speaker 1: about balance at the end of the day. That is
- 34:56Speaker 1: irrespective of some sort of like pr line because you know,
- 35:00Speaker 1: we know and we've done this from the start. This
- 35:02Speaker 1: really is more about protecting these interests and representing them
- 35:07Speaker 1: and covering the butts of the U. S d A,
- 35:10Speaker 1: who also do things behind closed doors that are not
- 35:13Speaker 1: very good for, you know, the health of citizens of
- 35:17Speaker 1: the United States. I'm so glad you're saying that there's
- 35:20Speaker 1: a reason for the structure of the pyramid. Max to
- 35:25Speaker 1: this with some like unsolved mysteries, musics. There it is.
- 35:36Speaker 1: It was bought and paid for. According to Louise Lights,
- 35:40Speaker 1: one of the nutritionists who worked on making the Food
- 35:43Speaker 1: Pyramid for the U. S d A, the original version
- 35:46Speaker 1: the one nutritionist came up with looked at heck of
- 35:49Speaker 1: a lot different from the one that ended up being published.
- 35:53Speaker 1: The Office of the Secretary of Agriculture altered wording to
- 35:57Speaker 1: emphasize processed food over fresh and whole foods, and to
- 36:02Speaker 1: downplay things like lean meat or low fat dairy. They
- 36:07Speaker 1: also changed the servings, which is one of the most
- 36:10Speaker 1: important parts of the equation. They upped the grains and
- 36:14Speaker 1: they lowered the servings of fruit and veg Right. Well,
- 36:16Speaker 1: let's also not forget that the history of this thing
- 36:19Speaker 1: really was one of economic scarcity. You know, of of
- 36:23Speaker 1: of issues where like what's the most affordable thing, and
- 36:27Speaker 1: that's why we have a bit of a health crisis
- 36:29Speaker 1: or you know, I mean, I think it's mainly heading
- 36:31Speaker 1: in the right direction now, but with things like you know,
- 36:34Speaker 1: processed foods and and fast food and all of that
- 36:36Speaker 1: stuff that is very limited lee regulated, you know, I mean,
- 36:42Speaker 1: it's all about freedom of choice here in the United States.
- 36:44Speaker 1: It's not necessarily about how can we make sure that
- 36:48Speaker 1: people are making the right choices so that we don't
- 36:50Speaker 1: have to you know, cover their diabetes treatment and have
- 36:55Speaker 1: private insurance rates skyrocket, whereas in other countries, yeah, you
- 36:59Speaker 1: might have slightly limited, more limited choices, but it's also
- 37:03Speaker 1: more affordable to get healthcare, and like everybody gets it
- 37:06Speaker 1: because there's more of a culture of moderation in other
- 37:10Speaker 1: countries that doesn't really exist in this country because we're
- 37:13Speaker 1: a country who's based on free market economy and choices
- 37:18Speaker 1: and therefore advertising a k a. Essentially um propaganda, you know,
- 37:25Speaker 1: that's making people feel good about eating these fatty, nostalgic
- 37:30Speaker 1: kind of foods. You know. Yeah, this podcast brought to
- 37:34Speaker 1: you by Fatty Nugs, just pure breaded nuggets of fat.
- 37:38Speaker 1: A Tyson production. I don't think fatty nugs or a
- 37:44Speaker 1: thing yet. I think it's something different. I think that's uh,
- 37:47Speaker 1: that's different. That's a different type of agriculture here. It is.
- 37:51Speaker 1: So you fast forward. Everybody knows that are problems with this.
- 37:54Speaker 1: You fast forward. In two thousand and five, the food
- 37:58Speaker 1: pyramid in the US is revised and they're trying to
- 38:02Speaker 1: correct some things here. They get rid of some things
- 38:06Speaker 1: that could have influenced people towards bad decisions. They get
- 38:10Speaker 1: a redesign, and people have problems with it. People have
- 38:14Speaker 1: problems that would seem weirdly specific unless you're in the industry.
- 38:17Speaker 1: For instance, the Potato Boys, which is are just it's
- 38:21Speaker 1: not a weird cartoonish Irish gang from the eight hundreds.
- 38:24Speaker 1: It's not from Gang of of New York. It's a
- 38:27Speaker 1: street term for lobbyists. The Potato Lobbying group. They were
- 38:31Speaker 1: super mad because they felt that potatoes were de emphasized
- 38:36Speaker 1: in the new graphics. You know, we've given you so
- 38:39Speaker 1: much money, what are you doing here? And then they
- 38:42Speaker 1: also said, look, if you want good nutrition advice with
- 38:47Speaker 1: this thing, you can't just see it on the pyramid.
- 38:49Speaker 1: You have to go to the U S d A website,
- 38:52Speaker 1: because the pyramid itself now doesn't give you any information
- 38:56Speaker 1: about serving importion sizes. It's just about proportion of food
- 39:01Speaker 1: groups to each other. Yeah, and you know, you think,
- 39:03Speaker 1: to the discerning consumer, this wouldn't be an issue. You
- 39:07Speaker 1: could go and you know, do your own homework. But no,
- 39:10Speaker 1: when it comes to graphics and things that are presented
- 39:13Speaker 1: to the general population, simple is the key, you know,
- 39:18Speaker 1: and dumbing it down is the way is the name
- 39:21Speaker 1: of the game. So if you're one of these industries
- 39:23Speaker 1: and you're looking at the official you know, image that's
- 39:26Speaker 1: being put out and your product isn't on there represented
- 39:30Speaker 1: in the actual picture, that's a real problem, you know,
- 39:34Speaker 1: because no one typically is going to look past the cover,
- 39:38Speaker 1: you know, the of the book they're they're not or
- 39:41Speaker 1: like the blurb. But right, it's all about appearances because
- 39:45Speaker 1: by large, most consumers aren't going to be savvy in
- 39:49Speaker 1: that way and aren't going to look behind the scenes
- 39:52Speaker 1: to actually see what else is there. Yeah, yeah, and
- 39:55Speaker 1: so it's still an imperfect system. That's why in two
- 39:58Speaker 1: thousand eleven, the U s d A released My Plate
- 40:03Speaker 1: like my Space, but it's a plate never Yeah, I
- 40:07Speaker 1: think it was past our time. Uh, and this just said, uh,
- 40:11Speaker 1: let's think not in terms of what you should eat
- 40:14Speaker 1: per day, but what you should eat per meal. And
- 40:17Speaker 1: the plate is split up into four basically equal parts,
- 40:21Speaker 1: with a side of dairy beside the plate because the
- 40:24Speaker 1: milk lobby, the dairy lobbies still have a lot of
- 40:28Speaker 1: a lot of cow juice juice. But also this makes
- 40:31Speaker 1: me think of, like with more vegan lifestyles and vegetarian lifestyles,
- 40:37Speaker 1: that doesn't really jibe with the with the food pyramid
- 40:40Speaker 1: or with any of this stuff, because it seems, you know,
- 40:43Speaker 1: on the surface that you're leaving out all of these
- 40:46Speaker 1: important sections potentially right or that, or that it's like
- 40:50Speaker 1: it's weighted incorrectly, you know. Yeah, And then you can
- 40:54Speaker 1: also see that this is a continuing conversation. Something like
- 40:59Speaker 1: this has to just it's good that it exists, but
- 41:02Speaker 1: it's not the be all and all solution. Maybe we
- 41:06Speaker 1: wrap up today's show by talking about some other countries
- 41:10Speaker 1: around the world who have taken their own shot at this.
- 41:14Speaker 1: I'm particularly impressed with China's because Belgium and China both
- 41:19Speaker 1: hit two big things that the US Food Pyramid forgot
- 41:25Speaker 1: well Belgium first of all, called it what Max said
- 41:27Speaker 1: it should have been called from the start, which is
- 41:29Speaker 1: the food triangle, because it's true, a a pyramid is
- 41:33Speaker 1: a three dimensional object, and and it really is. It's triangle,
- 41:36Speaker 1: but pyramid just sounds sex here. I do love that
- 41:39Speaker 1: China did the lean into the whole, like you know,
- 41:42Speaker 1: um structural aspect of it by calling it the food Pagoda,
- 41:47Speaker 1: which is sort of like a Chinese pyramid in some ways.
- 41:51Speaker 1: I guess, I don't know it's a structure, but they Okay.
- 41:54Speaker 1: So the really smart thing that they do in the
- 41:56Speaker 1: Food guide Pagoda is they recommend the big miss equation,
- 42:00Speaker 1: which every nutritionist will tell you if you want to
- 42:04Speaker 1: live a healthy lifestyle, A big part of it is
- 42:07Speaker 1: what you eat. But the other big part is moderate
- 42:11Speaker 1: regular exercise. So they include recommended physical activities. Uh something
- 42:17Speaker 1: works out to being like walking six thousand steps a day. Uh.
- 42:21Speaker 1: And then Belgium they put water in the food pyramid.
- 42:26Speaker 1: How do we forget about water? How do we water?
- 42:30Speaker 1: We haven't said that one time this whole episode, shouting
- 42:32Speaker 1: out like three different sodas three different times. Yeah, water
- 42:38Speaker 1: is is crucial. I mean water as We've talked about
- 42:40Speaker 1: many times on stuff they don't want you to know
- 42:43Speaker 1: is probably going to be one of the resources that's
- 42:45Speaker 1: going to cause serious division in terms of the availability
- 42:49Speaker 1: of it, who controls it. And that's because you can
- 42:53Speaker 1: survive without eating food for I think longer than you
- 42:57Speaker 1: can without drinking water. I believe that's that's accurate. Yes,
- 43:01Speaker 1: that is accurate. If you are out in terrible sideways situation,
- 43:07Speaker 1: one of the first things you want to secure where
- 43:09Speaker 1: is some kind of access to potable water, especially if
- 43:12Speaker 1: you think you're going to be stuck there. It's just
- 43:15Speaker 1: a terrible way to go. And it is kind of
- 43:18Speaker 1: a bummer that we have to think about this stuff
- 43:20Speaker 1: in somewhat dystopian terms sometimes. But let's go back to
- 43:24Speaker 1: the start of all of this, which was the Great Depression,
- 43:26Speaker 1: which is about as mad Max as our country has
- 43:29Speaker 1: ever become. You know, hey, you speaking of Max mad
- 43:32Speaker 1: Max just in terms of you know, Thunderdome and like
- 43:34Speaker 1: a arid waste land that we you know, have to
- 43:37Speaker 1: fight for our lives in order to survive. In Mad Max.
- 43:41Speaker 1: What I would argue is the best Mad Max movie,
- 43:43Speaker 1: uh Fury Road. It's all about control over the water
- 43:47Speaker 1: supply aqua Coldah. Man, that's good. There's a I can't
- 43:52Speaker 1: wait for the uh the next furiosis. Yeah, so here
- 43:59Speaker 1: we go, folks, the food pyramid. It's a good idea
- 44:03Speaker 1: that is also partially affected by conspiracy. Uh. And if
- 44:09Speaker 1: you are more on the technical side of shapes, then
- 44:13Speaker 1: you will also readily admit this is in fact a
- 44:16Speaker 1: triangle unless you have a defense for why it should
- 44:19Speaker 1: be called the pyramid. We'd love to hear it. Find
- 44:22Speaker 1: us at Ridiculous Historians on Facebook. Thanks of course to
- 44:25Speaker 1: our superproducer, Mr Max Williams. Uh noel, I just started.
- 44:30Speaker 1: This makes me, honestly, this makes him want to thank
- 44:32Speaker 1: a bunch of foods. I know I'm not supposed to eat.
- 44:35Speaker 1: Thanks to bacon on everything, you know what I mean.
- 44:38Speaker 1: Thanks to that fatty brisket. Throw some chocolate in there,
- 44:41Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Oh man, Yeah, fatty nugs.
- 44:46Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, give me a six pack of those or whatever,
- 44:50Speaker 1: six piece fatty nuggets. Indeed huge, Thanks to Jonathan Strickling,
- 44:56Speaker 1: the quister. He's gonna be back around and talk about
- 44:58Speaker 1: something one of these days. I mean, like people, at
- 45:00Speaker 1: this point, I think we're totally full of it that
- 45:01Speaker 1: he has died and that we're just sort of keeping
- 45:04Speaker 1: his legacy alive, promising for him to one day return.
- 45:07Speaker 1: But it'll happen. It's like we were at the We're
- 45:11Speaker 1: at the lawyer's office and he's reading the will and
- 45:14Speaker 1: he and part of his dying wish was for us
- 45:17Speaker 1: to continually act like he was about to be back
- 45:19Speaker 1: on the show. That's really sweet. What's a Boogeyman without
- 45:23Speaker 1: the promise that he might one day appear, you know.
- 45:26Speaker 1: Thanks of course to Christopher aciotas thinks Yves Jeff Co,
- 45:30Speaker 1: Thanks to Alex Williams. Uh No, this is this is
- 45:33Speaker 1: a fun one man. I'm you know what I'm I'm
- 45:36Speaker 1: so thankful we get to do this. Yeah. It was
- 45:38Speaker 1: also a good follow up to our serial series are
- 45:42Speaker 1: Serial Serial If you will, and I think we will.
- 45:45Speaker 1: We'll see you next time. Books. For more podcasts for
- 45:55Speaker 1: my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
- 45:57Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Some