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 SEPTEMBER 17, 2003 Building a Better Food Pyramid You may be eating what you think is a balanced diet, but chances are you need to consume more fruits, vegetables, and dairy products and fewer fats and sweets. A survey of 2,000 American households shows that most Americans don't eat as well as they think they do. Instead of following the government's balanced diet outlined in the Food Guide Pyramid, most Americans eat a diet that resembles a top-heavy, tumbling pyramid filled with too few fruits and vegetables and too many fats, oils and sweets, according to the Eating in America Today II report. This national sampling of more than 4,700 people asked the primary food preparer in each household to record both in-home and away-from-home consumption of each family member for 14 days. On average, the respondents thought that their diets closely reflected the Food Pyramid recommendations when, in fact, they did not. Women ate three daily servings and men four daily servings from the fats group, about twice as much as they thought and far more than the sparing amount recommended. Those surveyed also ate half as much from the fruit and milk groups as they thought, and consumed less than recommended amounts from the vegetable and bread groups. The only food group eaten within recommended servings was the meat group, according to the survey conducted for the National Live Stock and Meat Board. To bring the results down to a personal level, says Mary Hess, nutrition consultant and former president of the American Dietetic Association, "look at each food group, choose more nutrient-rich foods and find ways of enjoying less fat-sugary choices. No strong pyramid was built in a day." |
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