2800: They Flipped the Food Pyramid! (Comparing the New vs. the Old Food Pyramid)

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Mind, mind, mind, up with your hosts.

“Sal to Stefano, Adam Shafer, and Justin Andrews.”

They flipped the food pyramid in this episode with comparing the new one to the old one. We're breaking it down, and we're gonna tell you what we agree with. And what we disagree with. By the way, we have a whole food guide

that'll help you with your nutrition, get leaner and build muscle with some of the easiest steps you'll ever take with a diet that are also the most effective. Go to Whole Foods Guide.com, get it. It's totally free.

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head on over to MyPumpStore.com, that's it. Joy the rest of the show. For over 30 years, the government told us we'd see six to 11 servings of bread and pasta a day. They told us fat was the enemy,

and we got fatter and sicker than ever before.

But something just happened that we never thought

we'd see the government just admitted, hey, we're wrong. And they released a new food pyramid that actually makes sense. Let's get into it. - Okay, so, when this news came out, excited,

are you guys pumped about it? Is it whatever, like, how do you feel about it? - Oh, I think it says a nice change.

“- Big, I think it's a move in the right direction for sure.”

- Yeah. - Especially when you contrast it's almost flipped upside down. - It's almost all the opposite. - That's right. So I thought it was a total move in the right direction.

- Yeah, and initially, I think I had the reaction of who cares, who reads the food pyramid anyways. This is all, you know, whatever, it doesn't make, I don't think so. I mean, it is, it is taught in schools.

- Yep. - And, you know, there is the argument that I believe you made this when I was like, I don't think it matters that much. And I've been, I'm slowly being convinced that, okay, you know, part of why I probably feel that way is because

I've been retot off of and I grew up with a society that was taught from the old food pyramid. And if we start teaching our children this stuff and we educate more people on it, does this make an impact? And I think, I think the reason why I felt jaded early

was that I don't, I think if this is a real positive thing, it's gonna take a while before we actually really feel the impact of just how positive it is. - Yeah, one thing was like a lot of the food contracts and the businesses that they would bring into the school

and have to change and the priorities of that.

“So I think, you know, at least looking into it”

and the restructuring of how, you know, we introduce kids to what the priorities are with food, I think it's a positive. - Well, so the government policy had a profound impact on people's understanding of what was healthy, what was unhealthy, and the market.

'Cause you guys remember, so this is 1992 when the original food pyramid came out. Which, by the way, when this food pyramid came out 1992, it wasn't groundbreaking in the sense that they had been communicating some of these things for a long time already.

- Yeah. - So so I think came out of the food pyramid and said, suddenly, fat is bad for you. That had been communicated for a while. This just became kind of official kind of nutrition policy.

But because of government policy, people were afraid of fat and food companies would kind of follow soup. And so you saw a lot of low fat, foods, non-fat,

Everybody was afraid of eating eggs.

People stay away from meat and grain-based products completely explode, yes. And this was a direct result of this. Now, the new pyramid, I think, is reflecting, is also not groundbreaking the sense that,

I think a lot of people already figuring these things out. I think the fitness industry, the health industry, has been communicating some of these things for a while. And so now the government policy is kind of following soup. Nonetheless, it's gonna just speed up

what people have been figuring out for a long time. - So can we pull the old one up so we can look at, like, breakdown exactly what it,

“'cause I remember that at the very bottom was the grains,”

and it was like, well, that was like the most, six or eleven servings a day. - Yeah, yeah. By the way, what do they do? Can you just do, ever, six to 11 servings of grains?

- Yeah, yeah.

- What is that, by the way?

- What is that, by the way? - It's the other part of this that I think is interesting. Like, what's the serving? - Yeah, I know. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

- It's not clearly defined. - 'Cause I think of a serving is an amount of something that you have at a meal, right? - So six to eleven servings of grains, it sounds like a lot.

- It just tastes like six to eleven meals that are heavily based in your life. - Well, what it is, is it most through your, this is like the majority of your plate. Remember how they made my plate?

- The my plate was the follow-up. - A little bit. - Yeah, and so it's just the majority of your plate is made up of grains. Here's, and I'm gonna just gonna take a little segue

before we come back. Here's why this was a big problem. It's not necessarily that grains aren't good for you. It's really, because, okay, we can make the argument that animal products, meats are better than grains,

and I could make that argument all day long. But the biggest issue is a majority of processed foods, the vast majority are grain-based, yeah, okay. So a lot of people's diets moved away from whole natural foods and towards processed foods.

There's lots of processed foods that have servings of whole grain in them. Like cereal, breakfast cereal, whole grain, cookies, whole grain, bread, processed, really refined, carbohydrate, whole grain, or grain-based.

So this was the issue. This is why we created our whole food guide, was, I mean, we're gonna get into the new food pyramid, but literally the most impactful thing you can do for your health and fitness,

without getting too complicated, is to focus on eating whole natural foods, which will naturally eliminate a lot of these grains, by the way. A lot of them.

You might have some rice. You might have some natural limiters. I mean, that's about the fiber, and then obviously from the meats, you get that satiating effect as well. But it's like, it has these natural limiters in place.

That's right. So we made a guide, it's Whole Foods Guide.com, by the way. And when you go there, that really simplifies everything. And you just follow the steps on there, and you'll make some of the biggest impacts on your diet just from that.

“But I think that's the big, that was the big, big issue.”

The new food pyramid takes the grains serving from 6 to 11 down to something like two to, I wrote it down here, two to four. And they also put an emphasis on cutting refined carbohydrates.

So a third of what it was before.

A third, and they said definitely avoid refined carbohydrates, which points even more closely to process food. That's right, right. Because again, if you look at the old food pyramid, it's like a lot of things, which would knock out things like cereals and bread.

Yes, and make it into things. Rice would be okay, potatoes would be okay. Yes, yes, yes, yes. But if you're eating even bread, like even minimally processed, like sprouted wheat bread, as a different,

it doesn't affect the body as much as like hyper processed white bread. One of them has a much more, a much more of a satiety producing effect on the body, whereas the other one tends to encourage overeating, which is the real big issue. How much better is, I mean, I remember as a young trainer, thinking that choosing to eat wheat bread was a better choice than our white bread.

I used to think that as well. So how much better or worse is, is it like brown rice to white rice? Yeah, there's super processed, but if you did like sprouted wheat, then it kind of makes a little bit of... Well, yeah, I mean, if you did things like a Zeekeel bread.

There you go. By the way, when you try a Zeekeel bread. It's very different. Yeah, Zeekeel bread. You're not eating something.

Yeah, I'm talking about like regular old white rainbow wheat bread, whatever brand you don't say. It's just one's brown. Yeah. That's true. I mean, that's just an example.

“I remember as they did the same thing with brown and white rice to us.”

It's like you thought you were making such a better choice by having wheat bread instead of white bread. It's just like splitting hairs at most. Right, right. Right, right. The next big difference was the old pyramid really demonized fat.

When you look at the old pyramid, that's where at the top of the pyramid.

That's the thing.

Yes, two to three servings, sparingly at the top.

By the way, this would come out to for a 2000 calorie diet. So if you follow the old pyramid and you ate a 2000 calorie diet, do you know how many grams of fat, if you followed their old pyramid, 20 grams, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's about, there would be 20 grams times 9. The limit would be 180 calories.

I wrote it down. So I wrote down the exact amount. The limit would be about about 65 grams a day total. That's the limit. Yeah.

Times how many calories per gram that was. 65 grams of fat. Yeah. So you're talking about a hundred and about a hundred and fifty to two hundred calories. Yes.

That's nothing. That's just crazy. As a personal trainer. If I had somebody eating the lowest low, that's a little less low. Yeah.

That's like you're at the bottom.

Like we need to get those fats a little bit.

“You need to be a fix of that if you're deficient, you know.”

It's essential. Yeah, it's essential. That can be true. You need fats for fatty acid for the fatty acids. You need fats for fat soluble vitamins.

When fats are too low, which 65 grams of fat is borderline at a 2000 calorie diet. My experience with clients, clients would experience things like their hair wouldn't look so good. They're joint to and hurt. They wouldn't have as much energy.

Appetite would go up. It's not. Yeah. It's not great at all. The new pyramid, no limit, there's really no limit to the fat so long as it's coming

from kind of holding up. Is that what it even says? It doesn't say. They don't give you a limit. Crazy.

They don't really give you a limit. They don't say like limit it. They say, you know, as long as it comes from whole natural sources, essentially. So, you know, olive oil, avocados, butters, okay, meats are okay, fish is okay. Whereas the old pyramid, even if it was like salmon or avocados, no, no, you have

to keep it down. Yeah. To this real low amount, yeah.

“That's how bad the old pyramid was, yeah, that's crazy.”

Then protein, this is where it gets a big difference. So I did the math on the protein. So the old, the 1992 pyramid had protein at about two to three servings. The new pyramid has protein at the top, basically every meal. So every meal needs to have protein in it.

Res before it was two to three servings a day for a 170 pound man, okay. The old pyramid. You want to guess how many grams of protein that would recommend it for a 170 pound man. From 1990, yeah, 1980.

Yeah, 61. Oh my god, bro. Yeah. 61 grams of man. If you're in 170 pound, and you're trying to improve your health and fitness, get

stronger, or body fat, have any kind of satiety. Yeah. And you're eating 61 grams of protein a day. It's going to be tough. Yeah.

That's going to be really tough. Yeah.

Now, you're eating essential.

You're having enough to not die. You're a little protein. But I mean, we're paying the picture now of what this diet looks like when you fall the old. Yeah, you're removing the essential magnitude.

Dude, your meal is lighting. It's like three bites of chicken breasts, a loaf of bread and like what else? Yeah. Was this the mini glass of juice? A glass of juice?

Yeah. And a glass of juice or something like that? Yeah. I mean, crazy. Yeah.

That's not wrong. So the new one, the new one doubles it more than doubles it. But one hundred seventy pound man would have a hundred twenty-three grams of protein. And I'd still say that's minimal. Which is conservative.

It's a way better in the old, but way better than the old. But I still think it's a little low. So to get your back a little bit on this, I mean, it's been so wild for me to see how quickly the market responded. And maybe that's primarily to your point that you made that, you know, it's not like

the, the, the, well, I'd say the general pop wasn't up to speed, but we've been talking about high protein and fats are okay. It's definitely more mainstream. Yeah. It's way better.

It's so crazy though right now. I don't know how much you guys are paying attention this right now. I brought it up a couple times in the show. Oh, the protein options on menus. I mean, our viewers are watching commercials and TV.

I mean, jack in the box, Panda, like Starbucks. Yeah. They're all marketing high protein everything. Yeah. So they, I mean, they have high protein menus now.

And their commercials are geared towards Chipotle. They're geared towards command and get your 30. 70 or 90 gram protein meal. Like they're all pushing this high protein message. Like, and I mean, what did this came out less than a month ago?

Part of it is that the, the mainstream is starting to become privy to the benefits of, diet that's higher protein. The atkins diet, I think, taught people that fat wasn't scary. Yeah. Took a while.

Top it out. They did make people think carbs were scary, which they're not, but definitely not that fat is scary.

“And then you had the, the now you have to get you on.”

That's right. The introduction of the LP ones. This is shaking up the entire. That's right.

LP one, you need to eat high protein to prevent muscle loss.

“So you just take a perfect storm now to where mainstream now is like high protein high protein.”

So you can see lots of high protein, everything. Yeah. You know, come on. I mean, I'm telling you, it is everywhere. Yeah.

Everywhere I go. I see it. I see it in at Starbucks now. I see it at the Panda. I see it at the Giant Box commercials.

Chipotle. Not mad at it. No, no, no. It's so hard. No, it's so blinded.

It's so, it's so crazy to see how quick that was. You know, I mean, it was just, it felt like just the other day. Uh, you know, we were crossing the top of the now. It feels like everybody is on on board now with that. Totally.

In 1992, the pyramid. You know, it said limit sweets, but it really didn't say anything about process food. It didn't mention process food. Uh, the new one, it talks specifically about process food. In fact, it says words literally.

These are the quote, eat real food.

So we finally have, and again, we have that whole food guide that talks about the power of

whole natural foods, or should I say, getting away from the dangers of ultra-process food. It's whole food guide.com, right? Doug, I don't want to make sure people get that. Yeah, whole food.

“Well, I mean, I remember when we wrote this guide, we wrote this guide a long time ago.”

And when we first got together, and, you know, obviously, we'd all been trainers for a long time before we had even got together and started the podcast. One of the things that was really cool, because we all have different backgrounds. We trained a lot of different clients. But there was a handful of things that we had all come to the same conclusion.

You know, one of those being the way we programed for our clients, as far as the basic movements that we preach and talk about all the time. The other one was the diet advice. You know, and we all went through a phase where we used to write these elaborate diets. And we were things that we knew we created.

Yeah, meal plan for people, and we'd all got to this place where, no, if I just told my client to cut out the process food, eat whole foods. I give them an unlimited amount, like literally even less parameters than this. So just say, no process foods, eat whole foods, you hungry, go for it. Eat a steak.

You want a baked potato, eat it, have a baked potato, just eat real whole foods. And what we found was how much that naturally regulated their calorie consumption.

And then the next, that's the first huge layer that got them to lose the first like 20 pounds of fat.

Then the next layer was just like, go get protein. Yeah. I've threw those whole soup. That was it.

“Like literally those two things cut out process foods.”

Like 90 plus percent. And it's like that gets 90% of your clients in great shape. It's crazy. You said 20 pounds on average if I had a client who had to lose, you know, decent amount of weight. If they just were consistent, just with eating only whole natural foods.

And that's all they did. Between 15 to 20 pounds they would lose. Easy. And people can understand this. There's this myth that we have this like we're like eating machines.

We have this appetite. I know. That just makes us eat. If there's food in front of us, we'll just eat until we're overweight. That's not true.

That's not true. We have natural, we have natural regulators of society that tell us to stop eating.

The problem is we've engineered food to bypass it.

We've made, we've taken food, we've understood and really broken down scientifically with called palatability, right? The enjoyment you get from food which includes its taste, but includes many other things. And we've broken down like a drug. Yep.

And then we've engineered food using these principles and the result of which being, if you eat processed foods, you eat more. So you'll hit, you'll feel satisfied with way more calories than you would if you ate whole natural foods. If you look at a picture, I actually saw a picture of this the other day.

I saw a picture of the amount of potatoes in a big large bag of potato chips. And there was a table with them. I was like five potatoes and then the bowl of chips. And which one do you think you could eat all of? Of course to be the potato chips.

By the way, people think calories are a regulator of appetite. That's not true. In fact, the potato chips would have more calories than the potatoes because the potato chips are fried in oil. Yeah.

And yeah, I could eat way more and faster. I couldn't even finish the potatoes. So this is like a big deal. And the new food, this is the first time government policy has called out processed food, which is a big win because that industry, that food industry,

that part of the food industry has a string of hold on government policy. Because that's the money maker. Yeah. The entire way they make money is to make sure you keep consuming a lot of calories. And so it's like that's been the entire motivation.

That's just keep buying product.

processed foods are designed to hijack our body's natural senses of society. It's so obvious. I know you guys aren't really into it. I love the show.

“It's on the history channel Netflix picked it up afterwards.”

It's called a loan. And it's the one where they drop ten contestants in the middle. The last season that just went, they dropped him in the Arctic circle. Right? Just, and there's Moose Rabbit, some fish that they could possibly catch.

And most of these people struggle just to get a meal a day. And when you watch them eat a boiled, you know, squirrel head. They are the they feel. You can, oh my god, this is so crazy. How much, and you as a consumer watching the television,

you're going to like, it can't be that good. But it's like, when you haven't had anything and you've eaten nothing, but off of the land with no salt, no seasoning, no nothing like it's hard to get. You're, it's crazy how much we've changed our palate. Yeah.

Through even ourselves, right? And we, you know, we consider, I, I consider myself a good eater. I primarily hold foods. But we still season up like crazy. And I still eat processed foods to get, make its way to die.

And so we have changed our palate so much.

And it's so, and I remember when that never really,

I, I knew that like, intellectually as a trainer, but I didn't really understand to what level until I competed. When I competed, it was the first time in my life that I was so strict for long periods of time. Like, like, like years. It went three years of like literally tracking and doing everything.

And I remember going months of eating nothing but a whole natural foods. And I had to account for every single calorie. And so eating processed anything makes it because they let it allow to be 20% off. I can't do that.

“So, and then I remember that here I am almost, on 30 years old,”

inviting into an apple. And I remember that, but I still remember thinking like, "Wow, what does this one come from?" Because it was so, it, it tasted so foreign to me. Because my whole life, I grew up eating candy and things like that.

That, that it changed what vegetables and fruit tasted last. That's right. And it tasted so enjoyable and so rich. And I thought, "Wow, that's so crazy that I've done that to myself." Because we've done that to ourselves.

We have, and it's, they've engineered these foods so well. And they're so powerful that the brain reacts like it does to a drug. And this is why you notice this. Uh, is receptor starts to downregulate. Your brain starts to perceive this overwhelming sensation of texture and flavor.

And it starts to kind of numb it down a little bit so that when you go eat an apple,

if you always eat apple candy all the time,

an apple is going to taste bland. Because your brain has changed how perceived things, because it's getting blasted with these drug-like effects from processed foods. When you go off of them for a while, then you would hold natural foods like, "Okay." And so what happens is how your body regulates appetite and intake and the food intake,

it's so hijacked and so off, the side effect is obesity and disease. Yeah.

“And the only way to control it is either a count everything that goes in your mouth”

and hold on to everything with your hands real tight and live this really stressful, you know, crazy life. Which doesn't work or allow your natural, allow your body to naturally work the way it's supposed to, by sticking, this is why, this is why, and I know we all agreed on this when we first got together, why I didn't like if it fits your macro.

You know, doesn't take into account at all. Because it doesn't take this part of an account.

And for the listener who's never been able to stick to a quote unquote diet

for a long and a period of time to get themselves in that shape, if you don't put these crazy parameters and the only parameter you put is just eat whole foods. It is much as you want, but just eat whole foods. You do that long enough and those, those normal foods actually start to taste amazing. And if you do it even longer than those other things, you get a bit of repulsible.

Because it won't be overwhelming for your senses. That's right. And it, it's easy to answer it. But you let it creep in long enough and then they'll re-adapt again. And the other part of this is that, and this is again why I'm so excited about,

because it's, it's not perfect. I don't think the, the new food pyramid is perfect. And we'll get to that in just a second. There's some things I would like to add. But I love that they said for the first time avoid process food in real foods.

I mean, people need to understand big deal. When you look at the food industry, the margins on potatoes are nothing compared to the margins on potato chips. The margins on wheat are nothing compared to the margins on crackers. In other words, process foods have the big margins. They make the money and that's, those are the lobbyists.

So the fact that we came out and suddenly said eat real food is really amazing and remarkable.

“Now, here's why I think they should, I think they should have gone.”

I think the protein recommendations, although they're way better. I think they should have added, they should have made it higher. And I think what they should have said was for people who are, who are dealing with or worried about muscle loss. Who are exercising or strength training or interested in weight loss. Eat more protein and also eat it first.

Makes a big difference. Other than that, I think the fruit and vegetable recommendations and they're relatively same from the 1992 which was okay. Yeah. So I think this is great. I think we're entering into a new era of awareness around food.

Well, it's so cool to see this because I don't remember what year it was when we, when we wrote the whole food guide.

Because in the guy, we also help somebody who's never tried to do this.

Like we take you steps. It's not just like, here's a pyramid. Follow this.

“It's like, here's how we recommend how we used to coach clients through that process to get there.”

I mean, this is, this is it. The difference is what you're saying right now is like that we have a higher recommendation towards the protein. But it's really close to this. So let's talk about practical applications. How can we do this?

Number one, your aim for, if you're a woman between 25 to 35 grams of protein. For me, if you're a man of 45, 40 to 50, excuse me, grams of protein per meal, eat it first. And then the rest can be whatever, until you're satisfied, single ingredient foods. That's what a whole natural food is. Whole natural food is, that's the thing.

Meat, that's the thing. Egg, that's it. You know, apple, that's it. Rice, there it is, potato, there it is. Broccoli, there it is.

When it has multiple ingredients, if it has a long shelf life comes in a box or a wrapper, this is called processed food, by the way, this is going to piss off people. This also extends to the health food, the segment of foods that are processed, which you also see protein bars and shakes and although they're in a different category, they're still in that processed food category.

And so although they're, I think there's use for them, especially for hitting protein targets in the like. The goal is whole natural foods. So, you know, to play devil's advocate or defend things like that that we all admittedly use ourselves today. When I'm coaching a client, I want us to first do this. Yes.

Right. And then you, then you learn to intermittently introduce those types, those other things like that.

“But if you want to, if you want to get back to that place, where you, you crave a vegetable or crave a fruit,”

which, by the way, I thought was impossible because I had my entire life because since a kid,

I was introduced to candies and sweets, and it was never not a part of my life until I got older.

I didn't realize, I didn't, and I know I'm not alone. I know I'm not alone on people that believe that fruits and vegetables are bland or boring or like that. But if you do this for an extended period of time, they, it changes totally into this enjoyable thing. Then once you've had that and you've changed that chemistry and then you now have that connection to it and a different relationship with it, then it becomes a primary source or the primary fuel that you use.

And then okay, and then occasionally I realize, oh, wow, I'm having a low day on protein. I could have that protein shake to help me out there. And you're not, like, you're not going to switch from that to all send going other direction and you still realize, but teaching somebody that so they can feel it sticking to the whole food's first before you introduce those other tools. I mean, again, I'm going to say it one more time here at the end.

It's a free guide, it's a guide, the ultimate guide on a whole food, eating and diet. It's Whole Foods Guide.com. You can also find us on Instagram, MindPumpMedia, we'll see you there. Thank you for listening to MindPomper. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance,

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