Comments on: The FDA is Stupid, Take 2

By: aj

aj — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 22:06:00 +0000

I agree too , but the food pyramid is completely wrong, humans are not supposed to have grains, or dairy, it messes up our system. But it’s just stupid to increase serving sizes!

By: Whole Body Love

Whole Body Love — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 04:10:26 +0000

Insanity. I agree. Serving sizes should be based on needed daily value. People will not learn what a healthy serving looks like if we keep expanding the size

By: Barbara

Barbara — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:20:54 +0000

Even whole grains really are not that great for humans…but certainly better than junk.

FDA might as well stand for : Fictional, Deaf Ears and Actionless!

By: joggersl

joggersl — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 00:38:30 +0000

You’re totally right. I’m a nimrod. I know that the USDA regulates the food pyramid. I spent 2 years listening to my dietitian teach me about it. I was all rantish and got lost in my thoughts…clearly. lol.

By: Amy

Amy — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 20:11:51 +0000

I think that upping listed portion sizes will not change how Americans eat, but I think that maybe a few people would think twice if they saw that the calories for their crap food were 824 instead of 275 (and it’s 3 servings!), because I think more people look at calories listed than serving size.

I think the answer is more in line with “stop promoting fake ‘health initiatives’ and labeling food ‘healthy’ just because the cereal only has 78 million grams of sugar instead of the national average of 79 million grams.” (i.e. the now defunct Smart Choices program.)

The USDA food pyramid is pretty good (the FDA doesn’t handle that kind of stuff, just the regulation of the foods) – my nutritionist bases all her recommendations off of it – and . I am certainly not going to go out & say that the alphabet agencies are all fantastic, but I think that this isn’t a completely unrealistic change. Obviously the best choice would be for consumers to stop eating crappy pre-packaged foods, but perhaps (and I have not studied this extensively – just read the NYT article you linked to) this will jolt people into realizing how much they’re actually eating.

You made a great point when you said a lot of people are not using measuring cups & food scales – and since they’re not, why not make the listed serving size a more accurate representation of what people are eating?

What would be ideal (or a packaging nightmare, depending on who you are) would be the recommended serving size & the average serving size listed next to each other.

Of course, since we are such enlightened eaters, we’ll continue to monitor satiety & come out the winners in the long run.