"How, for example, are we to know that the color purple stands for meat and beans? Why the very thought of purple meat alone, makes a convincing case for vegetarianism."

The new Food Guide Pyramid (FGP) was unveiled amid much fanfare, late last month. There had been a good bit of speculation about whether the new pyramid would, in fact, be a pyramid or some other geometric shape. For those of you who are old enough to remember the four food groups, the predecessor of the FGP, you may recall that they were often portrayed equally weighted within a square.

The four food groups were replaced by the mystical pyramid with its subtle visual reference to middle eastern mysticism. No doubt, Vegas bookmakers were engaged in a thriving business taking bets on what shape the new graphic would take. I suspect that the circle was an odds-on favorite to take the prize. I was a little disappointed but not surprised when the familiar pyramid was unveiled. Having survived challenges from rectangles, trapezoids and even octagons, the pyramid ultimately prevailed and retained its title. It was an ugly victory though. With it's heavy emphasis on grains, indecipherable "serving sizes" and denigration of healthy fats, the pyramid, bloodied and beaten, was attacked from all corners as a coconspirator in the fattening of America.

The public spin on the "new and improved" pyramid is that it is customizable, possessing the ability to remake itself in 12 different versions that correspond with what health experts apparently believe are the 12 different nutritional groups of people. "The end of one size fits all nutrition advice is at an end," heralds the newspapers and web sites. Now you can get a personalized nutrition plan, courtesy of the USDA, without ever having to leave your house and trouble with doctors, nutritionists and those pesky insurance forms. This wonder comes courtesy of the internet and a special web site, set up by the USDA, where you can key in a bit of information and get a customized plan for the effort. The site also includes plenty of resource material as well as links to the new 2005 dietary guidelines.

It all sounds so wonderful and forward thinking. I was intrigued and wanted to see the site and the new pyramid myself. Unfortunately, so did everyone else in North America, as the web site crashed repeatedly when I initially tried to access it. This unprecedented demand came as something of a surprise, but it carries with it the hopeful possibility that it signals an overall rise in the level of interest in personal health.

So what of this "new" pyramid? Does it live up to the hype? Before I offer my opinion on this matter, it should be noted that the FGP is under the auspices of the United States Department of Agriculture. The assumed role of the FGP is to provide a user-friendly approach to guide us in the decisions we make concerning food. The USDA, then, is in the position of "nutrition nanny," dutifully wagging it's metaphorical finger while schooling us on which foods we should eat to be healthy, but that's not all the USDA does. It is also in the business of promoting the American food industry. Ostensibly, this means food produced in America, but realistically, it means any and all foods, foreign or domestic, from which the American food industry profits.

Here then is the conflict of interest which the USDA, as of yet, has been unable to free itself. How can this agency serve industry and promote consumption while, at the same time, serve you and me by promoting the concept of dieting, moderation in some cases and, goodness gracious, abstinence in others. Well, it can't. No one can serve two masters. The result is compromise, which is why you'll never hear the USDA identifying any food item as "bad" and something that should be avoided. Instead, the message we have heard and will continue to hear from the USDA and a host of other organizations and industry groups is that "There are no good or bad foods." and "Any food can be part of a healthy diet."

The Good
The FPG has always served as a type of visual shorthand for the more comprehensive dietary guidelines. The perceived problem in the past has been that many people lacked awareness of these guidelines and relied solely on the pyramid instead. This created another problem because the pyramid was far too simple to be of much use for most people. How many of us knew what was meant by, "a serving," for instance?

The USDA has tried to solve this problem by setting up a web site (MyPyramid.gov) that provides access to lots of additional information. This is a good move in that, by providing more comprehensive information in one place, the USDA is actually trying to make the dietary guidelines useful by making them more accessible.

Another good move is the acknowledgment that the one size fits all nutrition and weight loss solution really is a bad idea. The web site allows visitors to type in their age and level of activity in exchange for a "customized" nutrition plan. Visitors can also print out their plan. Finally, the web site provides some useful tools that assess your diet and exercise and allow you to track your nutrition and exercise for up to a year. These are all good idea, but as you'll see, not very well executed.

Some critics have argued that the people who need nutrition guidance the most, the poor, are also the least likely to have Internet access. I disagree that the Internet enabled are that much better off nutritionally than the poor. A visit to any big-box warehouse grocer reveals that the so-called middle class, despite their high-speed Internet connections, are just as capable and willing to destroy their health with junk food as the poor.

The Bad
While the old pyramid had its faults and was a constant source of nutritional debate, at least there was little doubt about the message. The same cannot be said for the new pyramid whose message seems less clear. The new graphic looks as if it was designed by a committee. It is disturbingly asymmetrical, lacking the visual symmetry of the old pyramid. The new version has been dressed up in a costume of garish colors that, to most people, will be meaningless. How, for example, are we to know that the color purple stands for meat and beans? Why the very thought of purple meat alone, makes a convincing case for vegetarianism. And blue milk? Egad!

The area taken up by each color is meant to correlate with the recommended quantity of food represented by that color, that one should eat. Owing to the subjectivity inherent in judging differences in visual imagery, the interpretation of food quantity and its relationship to a color may be somewhat unreliable.

Off to the left side of the pyramid is a graphic of a figure walking up a flight of stairs. This is meant to suggest exercise. One lesser complaint is that when reduced to a grayscale image, say, when you print out the graphic on a black and white printer, the colors orange, green and blue look exactly alike. Some people who are colorblind may see just that, even when viewing the image in color. This points to the inherent pitfalls in using color as a primary tool for conveying information. This is especially surprising given that as a government agency, the USDA should be well aware of the accessibility requirements for the visually impaired.

Why should it matter whether the image is well designed or not? One should never underestimate the power of a well designed symbol. The Christian cross, the Chinese yin/yang symbol and the Nazi swastika serve to remind us of this one simple truth. The new pyramid lacks the intuitive communicative power that such an important symbol requires. It looks instead, much like the mediocre clip art one can download for free on the Internet.

The web site is a good idea, but it remains to be seen whether the government is serious about making a real effort to educate the populace about good nutrition. I'm guessing they're not. When you look at the effort and money that went into reducing the use of tobacco in this country, one can't help but wonder why a similar effort has not been launched to stem the tide of weight related disorders.

A customized nutrition plan is a another wonderful idea, but when the only criteria for customization is age and an oversimplified definition of physical activity, there's not much potential for customization. Fact is, your "customized" plan is no different from what millions of other people received when they typed in the same information. This reminds me of those junk mail offers you get sometimes with your name printed on the letter. It looks like the letter was individually typed just for you, but most of us know that millions more received the same letter with their name at the top, just like you.. How customized is that? The customization feature is really just a smokescreen that hides the fact that the new pyramid is little different from the old one in its promotion of a low-fat, high carbohydrate processed food diet.

The diet and nutrition tracking features are another good idea, but they are, unfortunately, based on the 2005 guidelines, which promote - all together now -- a low-fat, high carbohydrate processed food diet. If you enter height/weight data that puts you in a "risk" group and indicate that you'd like to lose weight, the food tracker (and presumably the exercise tracker), effectively tells you to get lost with the message that you should, "consult a healthcare provider about weight loss strategies prior to starting a weight-reduction program." This might be good advice if your health care provider actually has some useful weight loss strategies to share, but unless your provider is one who is not afraid to challenge nutritional orthodoxy, he/she will promote the same old - one more time -- low-fat, high carbohydrate processed food diet.

The Ugly
For the wealth of information one can find at the MyPyramid site, it is paradoxically, information poor. There is really very little there beyond what most of us have already heard before. The "any food can be part of a balanced diet" mantra is echoed throughout the site. You would think by now, that someone in government would be willing to take a stand and tell the truth about what we eat. Many of the foods we consume are slowly killing us. An epidemic of sugar consumption, in the form of carbohydrates from sugars, grains, fruits and starchy vegetables is wreaking havoc on the blood glucose and insulin levels of millions and millions of people. We're all on the bullet train to diabetes and don't even realize it. Rancid vegetable oil, MSG, estrogen rich soy products and meats contaminated with synthetic hormones and antibiotics pollute much of what we eat. Everyone from major corporations to the local schoolhouse to the neighborhood church is in a race to see who can promote and sell the most junk food to our children. Where are the voices of our elected officials and the agencies they oversee? Why doesn't the 2005 guidelines and the new pyramid give us real information that we can use to improve our health?

One of the most obvious changes in the guidelines and in the pyramid is the emphasis on exercise. Everyone should exercise, but the recommendation that we get 60 to 90 minutes of exercise per day appears to represent a nod to the food industry which would have us believe that our weight related illnesses have nothing to do with food and everything to do with exercise. To suggest that we can eat anything and everything so long as we exercise is one of the most dangerous and deadly nutrition myths in existence. That myth has now been officially sanctioned by the U.S. government.

The final indignity of the new pyramid is how it has already been co-opted by industry. A recent news article noted that a well known cereal manufacturer has plans to imprint the new graphic on their cereal boxes to "spread the word" about good nutrition. I made mention of the cereal barons last month in an article that bears repeating. I will spare the reader a mouse click and reprint the relevant paragraphs here. Keep this in mind the next time you're in the cereal isle at the grocery store:

"An example of how the food industry exploits our ignorance about nutrition can be found in a recent and embarrassing flap involving some of the biggest names in breakfast cereals. Three of the top cereal manufacturers recently trumpeted the healthful benefits of the new low-sugar versions of their most popular brands. An analysis of these cereals was conducted by nutrition scientists from a number of universities. The results were revealing. While it was true that the amount of sugar had been reduced, the amount of refined carbohydrates (starches) was increased in order to retain the crunchiness of the cereals.

Everything else including the nutritional profiles and overall calories were nearly identical to the regular, full-sugar versions. Since refined grains are metabolized in much the same way as sugar, the net health gain in consuming these cereals was a big fat zero. These manufacturers were banking on the proven ignorance of consumers to not know enough to see through this lie. Their only concern was to give consumers the impression that they were responding to consumer demand for healthier food."