Food pyramid!

[Trendygirl]

http://www.famousveggie.com/vegfoodpyramid.cfm

I a little worried and confused. I look at the food pyramid and wonder how I am meant to consume all that food in one day! I think that I do quite well in all of the sections apart from the one at the bottom (bread, pasta, rice etc).

I find that wheat is really bad for my digestion and I become quite ill when I eat it. So I might only eat a slice of bread or a bowl of pasta once every few months. White rice (I know brown is best) I can sometimes eat quite a bit of it, like every day but sometimes I won’t eat it for weeks. I used to eat brown chapattis a couple of times a week when I would go round my boyfriend parents house but now I don’t. The only other thing in this section that I eat is a bowl of muesli or hot oats most days.

If I ate all the portions in this section I would be quite ill and very full, there would be no room to eat food from the other parts of the food pyramid. Is there something wrong with me? Is eating very little from this food group going to cause heath problems?

I can’t believe that it is possible for someone who is the correct weight for there frame could possible eat everything on the food pyramids every day.

What else belongs in this group? Maybe I am eating things that I didn’t realise belong in this group but I don’t thin so.

[foxytina_69]

instead of wheat products, i use brown rice products. brown rice toast, brown rice pasta, etc.

servings are alot smaller than people think, so its not that hard to get it all if u try.

the servings vary because the smaller ones are for people who are sedentary or smaller and the larger servings are for more active people.

[MzNatural]

You will likely find that some of the foods you eat fall under more than one category. I will try to look for a link and post tomorrow. I have plenty of examples in some of my nutrition books.
One way of receiving more fruits/vegetables easily is using a juicer. I have a juicer and use it daily.

[MzNatural]

Here are a few that give explanations

Vegan Food Guide Pyramid #1

Vegan Food Guide Pyramid #2

[feline01]

THanks Mz,

I bookmarked those for reference. Never saw those resources before. You are always such a wealth of information.

[eve]

Thank you MzNatural, but I must say that there's a heck of a lot of food there. Like TrendyGirl, if I ate so much I'd probably fall ill!

[MzNatural]

I agree it does seem like a lot of food, ok it is! I remember reading in a few research articles, books, and various other sources where the researches believed that the RDA was too high with some foods, vitamins, etc, and too low with others.

Here is the same Vegan Food Pyramid #1 taken from the site. I have a laminated copy on my refrigerator. Vesanto Milano also has a Vegan Food Rainbow on her website. If you look you will see that some foods fall into more than one category. In one of the books I have it has a ‘Vegan menu for a day’ and shows which category the foods belongs in some of the foods count as more than one serving, depending on what is eaten, I will see if I can find that online and post.

I found it interesting on Pyramid #2 if you look at the 'Traditional Food Pyramid' animal consumption has been moved to the same area as the condiments and is lumped with Protein: Meat, Poultry, Fish, Dry Beans, Eggs, and Nuts. They recommend only 2-3 servings of protein daily. Even the regular pyramid points to a larger consumption of plants in your daily intake. I can’t remember how long it has been, I think it was fairly recent, since they changed the Traditional Food Pyramid.

[harpy]

Think it's all quite controversial but fruit and veg seem to be the one thing that everyone agrees people need to eat copious amounts of. A lot of people seem to think that the original pyramid overstated the amount of grain that was needed in the diet.

There is more discussion here http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritio.../pyramids.html

[Trendygirl]

Thanks for all your help guys! I think that maybe juicing some of the fruit and veg might help but I have been told that it is much better for us to eat them whole rather than just their juice.

I know that the fruits and veg we eat today don’t have as much nutrients as their wild counterparts which they were originally cultivated from. Maybe if we ate more wild plants such as nettles it would mean that we wouldn’t have to consume as much in terms of volume?

[MzNatural]

Here are a few articles on juicing. I make a habit of chewing all my foods thoroughly as well as juices. It talks about the benefits of chewing (somewhat) in the first article. I don’t think you should rely on just juicing. I believe that statement 'not being as healthy' refers to the dietary fiber (pulp) removed from the juiced vegetables. I incorporate this pulp into some of my meals later the day. The rest I add to the soil in my garden, or save to make ‘raw dehydrated patties’. I make a bowl of raw veggies daily and sometimes add the pulp. When I want a snack I eat from the veggie bowl. I make sure I put plenty of greens (mainly collards & kale), broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, etc, in my ‘snack bowl'.

Juicing article #1
Juicing article #2
Juicing article #3

Here is a quote taken from the Harvard School of Public Health.

Is juicing fruit and vegetables a good way to get my nine servings a day?
Juicing can help meet the nine servings per day. However, it is best to eat your fruits and vegetables in their "whole" forms since juicing separate the fruit juice from the fruit pulp, which contains most of the fiber that may be beneficial for your health. Also, juicing fruits will increase the glycemic index of the food since the fruit sugars are more readily available.
For more information, please see Fruits and Vegetables.

[eve]

Is juicing fruit and vegetables a good way to get my nine servings a day?

Juicing can help meet the nine servings per day. However, it is best to eat your fruits and vegetables in their "whole" forms since juicing separate the fruit juice from the fruit pulp, which contains most of the fiber that may be beneficial for your health. Also, juicing fruits will increase the glycemic index of the food since the fruit sugars are more readily available.

Well the quote may have come from the Harvard School, but I disagree. I juice a few vegies every day, vegies that I would certainly not eat raw, nor would I want to cook them. I do eat raw vegies as a salad, and thereby get the fibre. Also I eat fruit daily and don't juice them.

[Andie]

I've heard the serving size on the pyramid is 1/2 cup.